after long discussions with myself and others ... I finally decided the standard environment of my OS(KESYS) for the next few years:
mainboard: MSI DKA 780GX platinum beside PCIe,ATI-graphic,AMD chipset and all these modern stuff, it got a working FD-controller, one IDE-connector and one "COM-port"! BIOS: AMI with many overclocking features and much more. why win98 wont run on it: BIOS-pNp support is stripped off :) RAM-space: even limited to 8 GB it supports fastest DDR2 CPU-socket: AM2+ I've chosen an AMD Phenom II X4 940 (quad 3GHz) for the first try, but I may lateron use cheaper/lesser power models if so desired.
It took me just one hour to assemble the whole thing and were surprised because of no troubles no problems and not at least because it booted my KESYS which reported almost correct (isn't aware of >2GB RAM) what's inside. And it also booted DOS6.00 without problems. Haven't checked winXP on it yet, I expect it to crash soon, as usual :)
So I can start to play with full 64-bit, latest SSE and MP-code now ...
The reason for not using latest technology (DDR3 and AM3) are just cost factor and reliability on already tested things. __ wolfgang
If an MB manufacturer has a .tw website, I usually try to use that. They seem more complete and upto date than .com websites, but they are slow to load from here...
> beside PCIe,ATI-graphic,AMD chipset and all these modern stuff, it
Ok, that means you have all the info to program it.
> got a working FD-controller,
Not needed: USB flash, external USB HDs, SATA HDs. If you can handle USB, a USB flash drive is your floppy replacement...
In fact, a while ago, I tried to determine everything that was available as USB. So much is available as USB, that all the other interfaces could be removed except for USB and video. About the only thing I couldn't find was a USB video card... Sound cards, network cards, floppy drives, hard drives, CD/DVD-ROMs, TV tuners, radio tuners, etc. etc are all available as USB. For a motherboard manufacturer to build a PC motherboard, they'd only need implement a cpu socket, main memory sockets, motherboard chipset, a video card interface, and a bunch of USB ports. Combine it with a DC-to-DC ATX power supply, one could have a very compact base system. Even my USB keyboard has two USB connectors.
> one IDE-connector
Not needed: SATA.
> one "COM-port"!
Not needed: USB.
> BIOS: AMI with many overclocking features and much more.
Yes, nice.
> why win98 wont run on it: BIOS-pNp support is stripped off :)
My motherboard claimed Win98 wasn't supported. I didn't learn that until after I bought it. I eventually found patched video drivers that worked with Win98. However, I had to disable the onboard ethernet and audio. I was never able to locate drivers for them. So, I installed aftermarket cards. RAID support also isn't available, AFAIK. I have no need or enough hardware to attempt a RAID setup. Win98 doesn't support multiple cores of the cpu. So, mine is only running as single-core. Still, it's been stunningly fast compared to my older machine. And, I haven't found native SATA driver support for Win98. But, I do have BIOS emulated support for the SATA SSD (solid-state drive) which works with Win98 as an IDE drive, but I also had to force an install of the non-working SATA drivers to keep 98 from complaining. I also have limited SATA CD-ROM support via a 16-bit DOS SATA device driver. Everything else, i.e., all the established older stuff, if I'm not forgetting something, works. Nope, I found out it doesn't seem to boot floppies without 0xAA55 signature, so no older OSes like CP/M... I suspect that one of the BIOS settings will enable/disable this, e.g., like legacy USB, but I haven't experimented enough.
> So I can start to play with full 64-bit, latest SSE and MP-code now ...
Cool. Personally, I'm unmotivated in that area at the moment.
Yes, and even more comments on details in the various foren.
> If an MB manufacturer has a .tw website, I usually try to use that. They > seem more complete and upto date than .com websites, but they are slow to > load from here...
.tw? means Taiwan? or tech-ware? :)
>> beside PCIe,ATI-graphic,AMD chipset and all these modern stuff, it > Ok, that means you have all the info to program it.
Yes, that was the main reason.
[FD,IDE,COM]
> Not needed: USB flash, external USB HDs, SATA HDs. ' > If you can handle USB, a USB flash drive is your floppy replacement...
[...] Sure it's not needed anymore, but I find it very convenient to have at least on my workstation. Many older machines don't have USB or just USB1.0, so IDE-drive support helps me a lot on hardware upgrades, just insert the users old HD and all data are moved.
[about USB...] USB is a fine thing as long not too many busmasters fight for memory and Bus-access time ...
>> why win98 wont run on it: BIOS-pNp support is stripped off :) > My motherboard claimed Win98 wasn't supported. I didn't learn that until > after I bought it. I eventually found patched video drivers that worked > with Win98. However, I had to disable the onboard ethernet and audio. I > was never able to locate drivers for them. So, I installed aftermarket > cards. RAID support also isn't available, AFAIK. I have no need or enough > hardware to attempt a RAID setup. Win98 doesn't support multiple cores of > the cpu. So, mine is only running as single-core. Still, it's been > stunningly fast compared to my older machine. And, I haven't found native > SATA driver support for Win98. But, I do have BIOS emulated support for the > SATA SSD (solid-state drive) which works with Win98 as an IDE drive, but I > also had to force an install of the non-working SATA drivers to keep 98 from > complaining. I also have limited SATA CD-ROM support via a 16-bit DOS SATA > device driver. Everything else, i.e., all the established older stuff, if > I'm not forgetting something, works. Nope, I found out it doesn't seem to > boot floppies without 0xAA55 signature, so no older OSes like CP/M... I > suspect that one of the BIOS settings will enable/disable this, e.g., like > legacy USB, but I haven't experimented enough.
What I understood from the latter above is that you actually run win98se on your K9Neo board ? I don't have any PCIe addon-cards yet, so I can't disable the onboard graphic/sound/LAN, but I'll try to install win98 some day.
I already ordered 64GB SSDs... interesting on this 3GHz CPU is the low power consumption, the CPU-fan turns at minimum speed at a CPU-temperature of ~38 Celsius (single core). __ wolfgang
I'd love it if someone turned that version into Native SATA support for Win98SE! The original author's current drivers are for DOS and don't work for me. This modified version works in Win98SE.
Probably other stuff I don't recall... KernelEx allows you to run quite a bit of XP and NT software on Win98SE. I've got XP/NT software like Mozilla FireFox 3.5.3, Flash Player 10 for Mozilla and IE6, XP's 64-bit MS calculator, etc. Supposedly, a few games for other Windows OSes, like Quake 4 will run too. I haven't tried that yet. Most of the time you just tell KernelEx what OS it's for. But, sometimes you have to "tweak" things a bit to get this stuff to install. E.g., you have to change the OS version number in the registry, or use Orca.exe to modify the .msi installer version checks to allow it to install on 98. I've been able to install Java 6u16, but I can't seem to get it to work correctly. Others on the MSFN forum supposedly have done so.
I've been wanting to try to Axcel216's 98SE-to-ME conversion. It supposedly installs better/faster ME files safely into 98SE. But, he requires that you have a ME install disk. I don't have a copy of ME available... Hopefully, KernelEx will continue to improve. If Java eventually works, and a few more app's I use, I might hang onto 98SE for a while longer.
From the link, "KernelEx is an Open Source compatibility layer with an aim to allow running Windows 2000/XP-only applications on Microsoft Windows 98 and Microsoft Windows Millennium operating systems."
> From the link, "KernelEx is an Open Source compatibility layer with an > aim to allow running Windows 2000/XP-only applications on Microsoft > Windows 98 and Microsoft Windows Millennium operating systems."
The current version provides emulation for: Win 95, Win 98 SE, Win ME, Win NT 4.0 SP6, Win 2000 SP4, Win XP SP2, Win 2003 SP1, Win Vista, Win 2008 SP1.
I've used the Win XP SP2 setting. It works very well. I've also used Win NT 4.0 SP6. It seems to work OK. For the most part, I've not had good luck with any of the other settings except "Win 98 SE". The irony is the Win 98 SE setting actually allows some misc. applications that don't work on Win 98 SE or other settings to work. Don't ask. I don't know.
> It seems a lot of work for little gain!
1) Well, I'm not the one doing the work... yet. 2) It's much easier to keep 98 alive than to start from scratch. 3) It's much much much easier to keep using 98 than converting to Linux. Linux is a total nightmarish PIA to setup, as I did the other day, even after having experience doing so with numerous distributions over a decade or more. It's still freakish horror story. 4) Win98 with KernelEx is far less resource intensive than XP. I.e., the combo runs well on old computers, unlike XP. There is no noticeable overhead. 5) There were 100's million copies of Win98 and variants sold. I've seen estimates over 350 mil. There is still a large installed base of Win98 users. I don't have solid data but believe 98/SE/ME sales to be comparable, perhaps greater, than XP sales. It was one of their best selling OSes. Not sure if it still is. 6) Should be easy to get a copy of Win 98/SE cheaply. 7) According to 2007 CounterSpy Enterprise research: XP 83.90% of home use, Vista 9.38%. 2009 death to Vista basically MS confirmed... 8) While applications for Windows are of value to users, XP and Vista as OSes suck: slow, painful, and highly annoying to use. Linux isn't much better IMO. But, Linux doesn't have much commercial market share anyway.
KernelEx didn't do much at first. It only claimed to allow certain non-98 video games to run. But, then they made some major strides. After a rewrite, lots of stuff started working. It seems KernelEx has provided information to Wine, ReactOS, and Linux Unified Kernel projects that provide Windows compatibility support for Linux... Are they a more worthwhile effort in your opinion?
Rod Pemberton wrote: >> What I understood from the latter above is that you actually run >> win98se on your K9Neo board ? > Yes! I do. > I run Win98SE on the K9Neo-F with: > 1) KernelEx 4.0 final > discussion: http://www.msfn.org/board/kernelex-4-0-final-2-t130936.html > files: http://sourceforge.net/projects/kernelex/ > 2) other non-MS Win98SE updates/patches collected by Axcel216 > 3) NUSB (Native USB driver, from Axcel216's website) > http://www.mdgx.com/ > 4) patched video drivers for Win98SE for my video card I found on the > Internet > 5) GCDROM.sys dos device driver for limited SATA CD-ROM support in Win98SE. > The website seems to gone. But, it looks like webarchive has it and links > to binary and source:
> I'd love it if someone turned that version into Native SATA support for > Win98SE! The original author's current drivers are for DOS and don't work > for me. This modified version works in Win98SE.
> Probably other stuff I don't recall... KernelEx allows you to run quite a > bit of XP and NT software on Win98SE. I've got XP/NT software like Mozilla > FireFox 3.5.3, Flash Player 10 for Mozilla and IE6, XP's 64-bit MS > calculator, etc. Supposedly, a few games for other Windows OSes, like > Quake 4 will run too. I haven't tried that yet. Most of the time you just > tell KernelEx what OS it's for. But, sometimes you have to "tweak" things a > bit to get this stuff to install. E.g., you have to change the OS version > number in the registry, or use Orca.exe to modify the .msi installer version > checks to allow it to install on 98. I've been able to install Java 6u16, > but I can't seem to get it to work correctly. Others on the MSFN forum > supposedly have done so.
> I've been wanting to try to Axcel216's 98SE-to-ME conversion. It supposedly > installs better/faster ME files safely into 98SE. But, he requires that you > have a ME install disk. I don't have a copy of ME available... Hopefully, > KernelEx will continue to improve. If Java eventually works, and a few more > app's I use, I might hang onto 98SE for a while longer.
Thanks for the info Rod, I'll check if I can make it work. It would save many of my clients a 'few' Bucks if they wont need to throw away their paid win98se and purchase XP just to replace old hardware. KESYS isn't affected by the hardware change, except I may add features, but most of the (isolated for security reasons) inet-servers run win98se. __ wolfgang
> 5) There were 100's million copies of Win98 and variants sold. I've seen > estimates over 350 mil. There is still a large installed base of Win98 > users. I don't have solid data but believe 98/SE/ME sales to be comparable, > perhaps greater, than XP sales. It was one of their best selling OSes. Not > sure if it still is.
Not sold since 2004, it even not earlier. Not supported at all since 2004.
> 7) According to 2007 CounterSpy Enterprise research: XP 83.90% of home use, > Vista 9.38%. 2009 death to Vista basically MS confirmed...
Let's look at Win7 in a year.
> 8) While applications for Windows are of value to users, XP and Vista as > OSes suck:
Win98 with its ability to random hangs and crashes due to even a tiny bug in the app is by far worse then XP and even Vista.
> slow,
On good (256M and more) RAM size XP is faster then Win98.
> > From the link, "KernelEx is an Open Source compatibility layer with an > > aim to allow running Windows 2000/XP-only applications on Microsoft > > Windows 98 and Microsoft Windows Millennium operating systems."
A good write-up below, Rod.
> The current version provides emulation for: > Win 95, Win 98 SE, Win ME, Win NT 4.0 SP6, Win 2000 SP4, Win XP SP2, Win > 2003 SP1, Win Vista, Win 2008 SP1.
> I've used the Win XP SP2 setting. It works very well. I've also used Win > NT 4.0 SP6. It seems to work OK. For the most part, I've not had good luck > with any of the other settings except "Win 98 SE". The irony is the Win 98 > SE setting actually allows some misc. applications that don't work on Win 98 > SE or other settings to work. Don't ask. I don't know.
Do you know if Win98 allows apps to run privileged instructions as DOS did, but in protected mode? That could be useful when developing an OS.
> > It seems a lot of work for little gain!
> 1) Well, I'm not the one doing the work... yet. > 2) It's much easier to keep 98 alive than to start from scratch.
Maybe. There's also the danger of getting too comfortable in an environment and then getting stuck there. Note, I'm not recommending Vista but XP is good.
> 3) It's much much much easier to keep using 98 than converting to Linux. > Linux is a total nightmarish PIA to setup, as I did the other day, even > after having experience doing so with numerous distributions over a decade > or more. It's still freakish horror story.
Some agreement and some non. I've set up a number of Linux boxes over the years and for the most part they have been easy to do. Maybe it's a distribution thing. The story was that Debian was so easy to set up a chicken could do it. For almost all setup questions it only needed a peck at the enter key.
The big downside to Unix, IMHO, is X (xfree86). I've struggled with x config files and especially modelines in the past. Not good. There's also so much to learn to keep a Linux box working in the presence of hardware changes.
That said, more recent setups have been Ubuntu. The video and X with those has been much easier.
X is still awkward to use compared with Windows, though. Mouse controls are OK but there is little keyboard navigation support.
> 4) Win98 with KernelEx is far less resource intensive than XP. I.e., the > combo runs well on old computers, unlike XP. There is no noticeable > overhead.
OK. Maybe it's time to upgrade the computer, though. If your trusty PC (with that special environment you've honed over years) ever bites the dust you'll have a whole lot of pain trying to get working again.
If, on the other hand, you have built a new machine alongside the existing one you can get it working as you want before the old one dies. I know from your comments you don't need a lot of horsepower. A new machine to equal and better an old Win98 original would be very cheap. For example, models in the Asus barebone range are good as workhorses. I'm writing this on one of them and may set up another soon to address a problem with a Ubuntu box.
> 5) There were 100's million copies of Win98 and variants sold. I've seen > estimates over 350 mil. There is still a large installed base of Win98 > users. I don't have solid data but believe 98/SE/ME sales to be comparable, > perhaps greater, than XP sales. It was one of their best selling OSes. Not > sure if it still is. > 6) Should be easy to get a copy of Win 98/SE cheaply.
True, it is hard to get a properly licensed copy of XP now.
> 7) According to 2007 CounterSpy Enterprise research: XP 83.90% of home use, > Vista 9.38%. 2009 death to Vista basically MS confirmed... > 8) While applications for Windows are of value to users, XP and Vista as > OSes suck: slow, painful, and highly annoying to use. Linux isn't much > better IMO. But, Linux doesn't have much commercial market share anyway.
> KernelEx didn't do much at first. It only claimed to allow certain non-98 > video games to run. But, then they made some major strides. After a > rewrite, lots of stuff started working. It seems KernelEx has provided > information to Wine, ReactOS, and Linux Unified Kernel projects that provide > Windows compatibility support for Linux... Are they a more worthwhile > effort in your opinion?
The KernelEx developers' efforts are impressive for sure. Since you asked, though, as for Wine etc I don't like what I have seen or heard of the Windows API so I'm hardly likely to view as worthwhile efforts to spread its message. Lean and efficient should be goals. Everything about the Windows API, it seems, is driven by commerce and expansion. I understand the reasons for this but I don't think it's good.
> Do you know if Win98 allows apps to run privileged instructions as DOS > did, but in protected mode? That could be useful when developing an > OS.
No. I don't know. But, I doubt it.
I do know that the Win98 internal DPMI host sets privilege to Ring 3, versus Ring 0 for some DOS DPMI hosts. I do know that Win98 creates many segments of limited size, but I don't recall what privilege level they are. I doubt they are Ring 0. If they were, there would be no need for so many segments... I know there were a few Win98 app's that displayed the descriptor info for the segments setup by Win98.
But, there is no real advantage to developing OS code in a Win98 console... I frequently code non-OS C code in a Win98 console. That has an advantage: it's faster than DOS w/Smartdrv. But, Win98 consoles have a few problems which I learned when developing assembly code in a Win98 console. 1) they'll lockup Win98 on repeated instruction faults 2) they allow overwrites of CMOS in random instances if the code goes "into the weeds" 3) you inherit some of Windows restraints which aren't present when in DOS.
> Maybe it's > a distribution thing.
Maybe...
My recent attempt was VectorLinux 64-bit STD 6.0 A0.9. They only list 5.9 64-bit Beta on their main website. This is available from a key VectorLinux repository. Linux fdisk didn't work properly at all. It wouldn't recognize the partition sizes. The Linux installation application or script, whatever it's called, would only find the installation media (.iso image) *IF AND ONLY IF* it was located on an *EXT2* formatted partition!!!! It would not find the installation media on a VFAT, EXT3, ReiserFS, or XFS, mounted or unmounted, regardless of partition ordering, etc. Of course, it took me quite a while to figure that out. And, this was a problem, because I was wanting a maximum two partitions: ReiserFS or XFS and a swap. I thought something was wrong with Linux cfdisk. Everytime I created the partitions and copied the install media to it, the installation script couldn't find the media and/or partition. Partition ordering? Mounted? WTF?
> Maybe it's time to upgrade the computer, though. If your trusty PC > [...] ever bites the dust
My old one did that, sort of (K6-2 500Mhz). This is my new machine (X2 5600+). But, I still "maintain" other older 98 machines too...
> you'll have a whole lot of pain trying to get working again.
Huh? It's Windows 98! Lcopy. Win. Let it locate new devices. Done. Or, reinstall into old system. (Ok... There's a couple more steps, but they haven't changed since DOS 5.0, literally.) It takes a few more minutes, but it's not that much harder than DOS install.
> I know from your comments you don't need a lot of horsepower.
?
> [...] [Wine etc.]
Well, a major continuing problem for Linux is hardware vendors not coding hardware drivers for Linux. This raises the capital costs and technical costs of maintaining and developing Linux further. All MS has to do is say: this hardware is obsolete and these are the new PC hardware standards - as it has done in the past. Go back to square one for Linux. It also makes the "use Windows drivers on non-Windows" philosphy of Wine, LUK, etc. thrive.
> > Do you know if Win98 allows apps to run privileged instructions as DOS > > did, but in protected mode? That could be useful when developing an > > OS.
> No. I don't know. But, I doubt it.
> I do know that the Win98 internal DPMI host sets privilege to Ring 3, versus > Ring 0 for some DOS DPMI hosts. I do know that Win98 creates many segments > of limited size, but I don't recall what privilege level they are. I doubt > they are Ring 0. If they were, there would be no need for so many > segments... I know there were a few Win98 app's that displayed the > descriptor info for the segments setup by Win98.
> But, there is no real advantage to developing OS code in a Win98 console... > I frequently code non-OS C code in a Win98 console. That has an advantage: > it's faster than DOS w/Smartdrv. But, Win98 consoles have a few problems > which I learned when developing assembly code in a Win98 console. 1) > they'll lockup Win98 on repeated instruction faults 2) they allow overwrites > of CMOS in random instances if the code goes "into the weeds" 3) you > inherit some of Windows restraints which aren't present when in DOS.
Thanks. Your reasons are good enough for me. I'll maybe revisit the requirement another time.
> My recent attempt was VectorLinux 64-bit STD 6.0 A0.9. They only list 5.9 > 64-bit Beta on their main website. This is available from a key VectorLinux > repository. Linux fdisk didn't work properly at all. It wouldn't recognize > the partition sizes. The Linux installation application or script, whatever > it's called, would only find the installation media (.iso image) *IF AND > ONLY IF* it was located on an *EXT2* formatted partition!!!! It would not > find the installation media on a VFAT, EXT3, ReiserFS, or XFS, mounted or > unmounted, regardless of partition ordering, etc. Of course, it took me > quite a while to figure that out. And, this was a problem, because I was > wanting a maximum two partitions: ReiserFS or XFS and a swap. I thought > something was wrong with Linux cfdisk. Everytime I created the partitions > and copied the install media to it, the installation script couldn't find > the media and/or partition. Partition ordering? Mounted? WTF?
Not good. Linux is off topic but you may want to try a CD or DVD install of Ubuntu another time. There are other good distributions but Ubuntu has worked well for me whenever I've used it.
> > Maybe it's time to upgrade the computer, though. If your trusty PC > > [...] ever bites the dust
> My old one did that, sort of (K6-2 500Mhz). This is my new machine (X2 > 5600+). But, I still "maintain" other older 98 machines too...
> > you'll have a whole lot of pain trying to get working again.
> Huh? It's Windows 98! Lcopy. Win. Let it locate new devices. Done. Or, > reinstall into old system. (Ok... There's a couple more steps, but they > haven't changed since DOS 5.0, literally.) It takes a few more minutes, but > it's not that much harder than DOS install.
> > I know from your comments you don't need a lot of horsepower.
> Do you know if Win98 allows apps to run privileged instructions as DOS > did, but in protected mode? That could be useful when developing an OS.
...
From my experience with win98se/XP(sp1) (w/o KernelEx yet): in opposition to XP, at least CLI/STI in 32-bit mode wont trigger exceptions, so it seems to be IOPL=3. Can't tell if VM16 tasks allow this as well.
__ wolfgang
sorry for the delayed reply, I'm heavy busy with my new gadgets :)
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