wrote:It would have been cool to see the reverse, non-x86 add-on boards for x86 machines. Sadly we seem to use software emulation exclusively now.
Such peripheral was too. Example of them is IBM Personal/370 (addon card for running System/370 systems on PS/2s).
wrote:1) the BIOS *is* the platform; that's my Sun/386 example - it's a bog-standard 386 but with firmware unlike PC BIOS, so effectively a completely different beast even if the CPU could run the same code; the code would run, but would be meaningless with completely different architecture.
Not necessarily.
The BIOS as we came to know it, was an almost 1:1 copy of the IBM BIOS. For strict CP/M-like compatibility, clones would not have had to have such an accurately cloned BIOS.
In fact, you could have your own type of BIOS, and merely offer the calls required for DOS as some 'compatibility layer', either in ROM or loaded from disk.
As long as the relevant int-APIs were resident before loading DOS, it works fine.
Technically that is what modern PCs do: they have UEFI, which is nothing like the legacy BIOS, but many of them still have a 'legacy' shim, where an IBM-compatible BIOS is loaded, so you can still run DOS or non-UEFI versions of Windows.
wrote:2) direct hardware calls were always part of the DOS concept - DOS + BIOS covered the bare minimum of I/O, anything over that had to talk straight to the hardware, and was facilitated in doing so by the original PC design.
This is where we disagree.
I also am not sure what you mean by "facilitated by the original PC design". Obviously, with the limited hardware available at the time, it was not possible yet to have any kind of 'protected mode', where you could prevent software from accessing hardware directly.
That is not the same as this being the explicit goal of the platform.
wrote:Even if no DOS developer had ever written directly to a peripheral, it still wouldn't have mattered, code for PC would not have run on other platforms.
This is wrong. Write a DOS program that doesn't access any hardware directly, and it will run just fine on the Tandy 2000, Philips : YES, and various other DOS-compatible machines, which are not IBM-compatible. That is a simple fact, and easy to check. That is the CP/M way.
In fact, even IBM's own PCjr falls into that category: its hardware is significantly different from a regular PC, yet you can run DOS applications on it.
Some examples: the keyboard interface is completely different, and works via the NMI. The floppy controller is also at a different address than on a regular PC. And it lacks the DMA controller. The video chip is also not regular CGA, but is an extended chip, which uses system memory for the framebuffer.
All these things are abstracted away by the BIOS and the OEM version of PC DOS.
wrote:Cool! I remember a slightly older thread from here called "PC compatibility cards", too. 😀
The main two that come to mind for me is the Amigas with bridge boards and Acorn RiscPCs which a dedicated slot for x86 co-processor cards.
The Acorn BBC Master 128 also had an x86 add-on, making it the Master 512. The kit consisted of an 80186 board and DOS Plus/GEM.
Neat. The Acorn A4000 only has an emulator in software. Quite slow though. For text stuff only really. Cool seeing Dos running as a window in RiscOs 3.1 though. Have a few A4000s in various states of repair. Never heard of zipp ram until I acquired one. Now I know Amiga used them as well. Really stupid idea as the pins are easily damaged. Simms are a lot better idea.
There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉
wrote:It would have been cool to see the reverse, non-x86 add-on boards for x86 machines. Sadly we seem to use software emulation exclusively now.
Technically not really an add-on board (although it's ISA, it was never sold separately, and not sure if it would work in any other machine), but this reminded me of the Amstrad Mega PC:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dWb-uw27Yg
It basically combined a PC clone with a Sega MegaDrive.
wrote:Technically not really an add-on board (although it's ISA, it was never sold separately, and not sure if it would work in any ot […]
wrote:It would have been cool to see the reverse, non-x86 add-on boards for x86 machines. Sadly we seem to use software emulation exclusively now.
Technically not really an add-on board (although it's ISA, it was never sold separately, and not sure if it would work in any other machine), but this reminded me of the Amstrad Mega PC:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dWb-uw27YgIt basically combined a PC clone with a Sega MegaDrive.
You made me recall 3DO Blaster - that compatibility card allowed to play on Windows PCs games for Panasonic 3DO (anyone here remembers that console?)
hello there 😁
I have a Sun Blade 100 (sparc-based) and Apple PowerPC (400mhz PPC Risc) both running modern-generation SATA and USB-addon PCI cards, niether of which were designed nor have drivers for these platforms.
As you can guess, I'm running Linux on both, and using the kernel's native drivers for the cards. The downside is the machine's are "just another linux box" from a software perspective (and sloooow as well), but I get enjoyment out leveraging linux to bring these old machines back to life with a fully capable software stack.
wrote:hello there :D […]
hello there 😁
Nioce! What's ya specs mate?
There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉
well it's a standard Aleph-One 100mhz 486 card and a 233mhz Strongarm in there... there is a 2mb vram module, some 96mb of ram , that icubed 10mbps nic and that's it 😀
It was quite neat you could from an A610 to StrongeArm on the same mobo. Get it local?
There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉
@keropi Thanks for sharing! Looks amazing! 😀
wrote:wrote:Cool! I remember a slightly older thread from here called "PC compatibility cards", too. 😀
The main two that come to mind for me is the Amigas with bridge boards and Acorn RiscPCs which a dedicated slot for x86 co-processor cards.
The Acorn BBC Master 128 also had an x86 add-on, making it the Master 512. The kit consisted of an 80186 board and DOS Plus/GEM.
Neat. The Acorn A4000 only has an emulator in software. Quite slow though. For text stuff only really. Cool seeing Dos running as a window in RiscOs 3.1 though.
I wished the Acorns were more popular in my place. These were really interesting machines, indeed.
A few years ago, I ran RiscOS on my Raspberry Pi and it was really interesting to me! 😀
Though without the third-party end user applications of the day the experience was not as well as expected.
PS: There are a few videos about the Master 512 or DOS Plus online..
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=bbc+master+512
"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel
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Cool.
A good thing about the Acorns is they took standard formatted floppy disks, so you could swap files between a number of different systems. atari were PC compatable as well.
Here's my RiscPC thread over at Vogons I started back in 2013 http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?23526
There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉
wrote:Cool! I remember a slightly older thread from here called "PC compatibility cards", too. 😀
Hey that's my old thread!
I don't have that RiscPC anymore but I kept an A7000 for the few RiscOS games I have, Dune 2 and Alone In The Dark.
wrote:I wished the Acorns were more popular in my place. These were really interesting machines, indeed.
A few years ago, I ran RiscOS on my Raspberry Pi and it was really interesting to me! 😀
Though without the third-party end user applications of the day the experience was not as well as expected.
Acorn machines are also not popular in France but thankfully the UK is not that far away.
wrote:Technically not really an add-on board (although it's ISA, it was never sold separately, and not sure if it would work in any other machine), but this reminded me of the Amstrad Mega PC:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dWb-uw27YgIt basically combined a PC clone with a Sega MegaDrive.
The Amstrad Mega PC is more like having 2 distinct machines in the same case that don't see each other at all, unlike what the TeraDrive do.
wrote:You made me recall 3DO Blaster - that compatibility card allowed to play on Windows PCs games for Panasonic 3DO (anyone here remembers that console?)
There were also the NEC PC-FX GA, the Philips CD-i/PC 2.0 and the Sony DTL-H2000 (one of the PS1 devkits), all were ISA boards for use in x86 computers.
wrote:wrote:Cool! I remember a slightly older thread from here called "PC compatibility cards", too. 😀
Hey that's my old thread!
I don't have that RiscPC anymore but I kept an A7000 for the few RiscOS games I have, Dune 2 and Alone In The Dark.
I found a nice all packaged up RiscOS 3 emulator bundle last night http://qubeserver.com/qube/classicriscos.html Runs real well. Worth a look for those not familiar with RiscOS. I'd like an A7000 Plus as I like slim line systems in general.
There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉
wrote:Technically not really an add-on board (although it's ISA, it was never sold separately, and not sure if it would work in any ot […]
wrote:It would have been cool to see the reverse, non-x86 add-on boards for x86 machines. Sadly we seem to use software emulation exclusively now.
Technically not really an add-on board (although it's ISA, it was never sold separately, and not sure if it would work in any other machine), but this reminded me of the Amstrad Mega PC:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dWb-uw27YgIt basically combined a PC clone with a Sega MegaDrive.
The mythic Shablamm! Nitro-VLB addon card based in the MIPS NT/Jazz architecture falls also in this category. It was a sort of parasitic addon card with allowed a 486 PC with VL Bus to become a full MIPS Jazz/ARC workstation to run NT3.1 full speed. The card uses anything installed in the 486 board (chipset, memory, addon storage and network cards) except the CPU. And the firmware in the card allowed you to choose between PC mode and MIPS/NT mode at bootime, so you could still boot to DOS/Win3.11 with the card installed.
Unfortunately no one seems to have a real card to test its full capabilities. It seems lost in time.
There was also the MCA P/370 IBM emulation-in-hardware mainframe card set. For more specific tasks and for microprogramming you had Transputer addons, or the multiple i860 compute units. Ofc these ran microprograms or minimalistic software systems, not general purpose OSs.
wrote:There was also the MCA P/370 IBM emulation-in-hardware mainframe card set. For more specific tasks and for microprogramming you had Transputer addons, or the multiple i860 compute units. Ofc these ran microprograms or minimalistic software systems, not general purpose OSs.
Yes, I've already mentioned P/370 early. There was also IBM 7437 VM/SP Technical Workstation, which was separate device connected to PS/2 via MicroChannel. Unfortunately, there are no pictures of this addon.
wrote:For more specific tasks and for microprogramming you had Transputer addons, or the multiple i860 compute units.
You mean systems like Olivetti CP486 and Hauppauge 4860? That dual-architecture machines would be interesting to see in action, especially it's i860 side.
