Don't know if the versions are appropriate, but have a look at

https://wiki.preterhuman.net/Motorola_Atlas
ftp://ftp.atlas.altexxa.net/software/prep/

and this

https://omgwtfbbq.ca/2018/07/installing-windo … 0-on-a-powerpc/

sorrow wrote on 2020-01-06, 22:45:

Hi, […]
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Hi,

Recently I became a proud owned of PowerStack II. It works fine and boots Linux. I would like to try Windows NT but after research I learnt that I'm missing some Motorola disks. Namely:

- PPC Boot Disk (Available from Motorola)
- Arcinst.exe (Available from Motorola)
- FW.IMG on disk (Available from Motorola)

I did exactly this some years ago, albeit not a full PowerStack 2 system, just a bare motherboard. You shouldn't need the floppies to install NT, the Firmware should have all the tools you need, just BYO Windows NT4 CD-ROM.

I made a video of the process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpAOCJFqImM

HTH

Dunno if is the case, but sometimes these disks contain updated versions of the NT framebuffer display drivers (don't confuse with win32k umode display miniport drivers), and hal components for NT (yes, video is a real issue for non-x86 non-pc NT platform, as each vendor used to offer their own propietary solutions so you needed an NT framebuffer port driver to just boot... and hal well, explains alone). Other than that, the disks are only required if you will service your mobo firmware (advice, don't do it unless you know really what you are doing, some guys updated it to a version compatible with AIX only and these can't boot NT anymore and no one seems to have the file to downgrade them back to NT4 compatible), as the firmware already offers all the required tools to prepare the system drive and install NT4 on it.

Thank you guys. I have read the articles and seen the video already before. But it did not help.

It seems that I have different firmware version as @hyoenmadan pointed out. Mine says 1.2 RM11 and has much less features than the one in the video made by @SquallStrife. It lacks NT support and (for instance) allows only very basic disk format with automatic creation of one partition (I rather did not try).

My guess is that I need to upgrade it to version 3.04.04 as seen in the video.

I have followed a guideline included here (for IBM): http://web.archive.org/web/20041212130034/htt … tinstall.html#1

1st Step
You need to obtain a copy of NT ARC Bootloader which is a PowerPC boot disk.
The software can be obtained from :

It is best to use this version to install NT4.0
ftp://ftp.pc.ibm.com/pub/pccbbs/powerpc/arc151.exe
Windows NT Arc Bootloader v1.51

If you have trouble installing Windows NT 3.51 with v1.51 - You can try using v1.49.
ftp://ftp.pc.ibm.com/pub/pccbbs/powerpc/arc149.exe
Windows NT Arc Bootloader v1.49

If you are unable to reach ftp.pc.ibm.com you can download from this server
http://sunflower.singnet.com.sg/~s8700039/arc151.exe
Windows NT Arc Bootloader v1.51

2nd Step
Make sure you read the license.txt or readme.txt files on how to create the boot disk.
Make sure you use a 1.44MB Floppy Disk (use any other size and the bootloader will not work)
---------------Cut From version 1.49 of license.txt---------------
The password to unzip the ARCV149.EXE is PPC.
To extract the files required for ARC the command is:
ARCV149 -sPPC

The files will need to be extracted to a sub-directory. Once you have
unzipped these files to a sub-directory you will need to insert a
blank diskette in the A: drive and either run:

If on a PowerPC machine:
MKFLPPPC.EXE FWE.IMG

If on an Intel platform:
MKFLP386.EXE FWE.IMG

This will create a bootable ARC (version 1.49) for the PowerPC.
---------------Cut From license.txt---------------

3rd Step
Boot your machine using the ARC bootloader disk which you have created.
If your machine is unable to boot, check if your floppy disk is still good and if it is a 1.44MB disk.

You should see the first screen asking you about the language you want to use.
Next, you should see second screen asking you about you keyboard layout.

Next you will see
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Main Boot Menu

Installation and Setup Services
Run a Maintenance Program
Configuration Display Menu

Make Selection using Arrow Keys and 'Enter',
or press ESC to Cancel
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have downloaded different disk images both from IBM ftp mirror mentioned above as well as from archived Motorola page but with not Luck. Each time the floppy boot results in Data access exception and system halted.

I'm neither able to boot NT cdrom directly (as I expected).

Fascinating!! Yeah our systems definitely have very different firmwares installed.

Unfortunately I'm not an expert on this system, I really just fumbled my way through getting NT installed. If it's giving you Data Access Exception, I would be suspicious of the RAM, but if it was previously running Linux OK, then that's probably not it.

Have you tried replacing the floppy drive and/or cable? If every disk you try is giving you some sort of grief, I'd first be suspicious of the floppy drive, maybe the heads need a clean?

Unfortunately you have one of the last PowerStack machines which came with Firmworks OpenFirmware (non-Sun implementation) out of the factory instead Motorola PPCBug. These only will boot AIX (or linux as you said before). Not sure if was possible to make these run NT with firmware change or ARC disk, although some docs pointed a "future" compatibility. NT itself was compatible to some extent with Firmworks OpenFirmware, but the built-in support was limited to the FirePower Powerized workstation series made by FirePower/Canon.

Why? In Openfirmware machines NT needs a shim firmware-on-disk executable which emulates ARC firmware in the OpenFirmware environment called VEENER, similar to what MS does actually to boot Windows on the RPi compatible boards, or to Intel's DUET/Hackintosh EDKII Clover, which can be used to emulate UEFI in a BIOS-only machine. But unlike newest incarnations of that shim technology in newer windows versions, VEENER has to team with NT HAL to boot the system, and HAL has to have support for the VEENER module used to boot the machine. Unfortunately none of the HALs except the one for the Canon systems have such support, so you can't use the VEENER included in the NT CD to boot Motorola OpenFirmware Machines with the built in Motorola HAL, it will BSoD early in boot process. You need an ARC disk with an specific VEENER/HAL tandem tailored for your system, and i'm not sure if such disk ever existed.... That or a firmware disk to downgrade your actual OpenFirmware firmware to PPCBug.

Finally, maybe there is a possibility to create a Veener and HAL tandem for the Powerstack using the leaked windows source... If you know how to do it... Supposedly according some webposts at Betaarchive that source has all the tools and the source code of both Motorola HAL and FirePower Veener/HAL tandem required to build these files, but you still need to port the support for Veener from the Firepower HAL to the Motorola one, and fix the VEENER module a bit 😜.

ED: There is at least one reference to VEENER.exe in this OpenFirmware manual for your system....
http://www.ing.iac.es/~docs/external/vme/PPCOFWQSA-UG2.pdf

You can try to boot NT CD with the commandline "boot cdrom:,\PPC\VENEER.EXE" from the openfirmware prompt and "tell us" what happens 😉.

Are there any hardware differences between boards shipped with OpenFirmware, and those shipped with PPCBug?

I could dump the EEPROM on my board, but I think I'd need to get a PLCC->DIP adaptor first, so I couldn't do it immediately.

Only between the first PowerStacks I and II which are PReP chipset level compatible, and the very last ones, which are already CHRP chipset boards. There were PowerStack OpenFirmware PReP boards which only differ from PPC1Bug ones in the firmware. But NT OpenFirmware support is supposed to cover both PReP and CHRP boards and chipsets. I wonder how true these claims were.

Just noticed that the date is set to 2077. Is the RTC battery dead?

As i said before... Unlike what seems at first, looks like there is a sort of "beta" (?) support for your system built in Windows NT CD. You really would like to try that support before going more extreme flashing files to PROM and stuff...

Just type in the OFW "ok" prompt the command "boot cdrom:,\PPC\VENEER.EXE" (spaces and punctuation signs included). Hopefully it will boot to the installer at least, and in the best case it will let you install the system.

Thanks @hyoenmadan ! Partial progress. I managed to boot into ARC Interface Version 3.0. However, it tries to immediately load osloader.exe from cdrom directory \os\winnt\ (where there is none) and terminates with "Bad patch"error.

Maybe, it needs some boot parameters set?

After having provided parameter \ppc\setupldr I succesfully booted Windows NT Setup. However, it says that CDROM partition 1 is corrupted ...

Taken from https://github.com/andreiw/prephv/blob/master/prep.dts, there are certain parameters need to be added to the openfirmware "option" word vars so VEENER can read them... These are:

1LOADIDENTIFIER = "Entry Name";
2OSLOADOPTIONS = "dunno what this does";
3OSLOADPARTITION = "this has to point to the actual boot device in arc nomeclature, default being multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)";
4OSLOADER = "has to point to the ARC NT exe file to be executed, default being multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\osloader.exe";
5OSLOADFILENAME = "dunno what this does, default \\";

Now we need to investigate how add such variables to open firmware, and the necessary parameters... By default this has to be done by some firmware graphical setup options automatically, but as i said before, the support for the powerstack II built in both machine and nt cd looks a bit "alpha".

ED: Your ARC cdrom device path doesn't look valid. multi() only works with x86 NTLDR ARC emulator. In risc systems it should be something like scsi()cdrom()fdisk().

Check for example the ARC path tree for this MIPS system:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1n0kWWqQ0D8&t=360s

You need play a bit with the variables to past SETUPLDR.

Well there is no such graphical setup of NT options. Only SETENV command (can also be set from menu). I'm not sure that it is the same. Tried but no luck so far ...

How did you modified the "\ppc\osloader.exe" to "\ppc\setupldr.exe" to make the posted screenshot?

No, I passed \ppc\setupldr as parameter to veneer.exe - the whole command reads:

boot cdrom:,\PPC\VENEER.EXE \PPC\SETUPLDR

I discovered that it uses some default path based on what scsi devices are attached:

If only the cdrom is attached if boots from multi(0)scsi(0)cdrom(6)fdisk(0)partition(1)\ppc\setupldr (which runs the setup)

but

if also the disk is present if tries to boot from multi(0)scsi(0)disk(0)rdisk(o)partition(1)\pcc\setupldr (which fails).

Therefore, it seems to me that this multi(0)... etc. convention somehow works here.

Ok... from the "ok" prompt type the following commands:

1printenv
2setenv LOADIDENTIFIER NTSetup
3setenv OSLOADER scsi(0)cdrom(6)fdisk(0)\ppc\setupldr.exe
4boot cdrom:,\PPC\VENEER.EXE

Typed as how it is. Tell us what happens.

This thread made me wonder Intel x32 executables will run on a PowerPC NT4 system, does anyone know is they will? This is possible on my DEC Alpha NT4/W2K system, but I have never tried doing so on either PowerPC or MIPs system.

If they do I would be interested to know how my SIV32L utility does, see SIV support for 386/486/586 class + Alpha CPUs and 3dfx + S3 + SiS + Matrox + XGI + old ATI + NVidia GPUs - Testing Help

Nice, hope you get it running. I know there were people (either on BetaArchive or Nekochan) running NT on the Powerstack, not sure which generation. I had once NT running on an RS/6000 E30, I couldn't find a way to install it on the RS/6000 43P 7043-140 (not the regular 43P 7248).

red-ray wrote on 2020-01-09, 08:41:

This thread made me wonder Intel x32 executables will run on a PowerPC NT4 system, does anyone know is they will? This is possible on my DEC Alpha NT4/W2K system, but I have never tried doing so on either PowerPC or MIPs system.

If they do I would be interested to know how my SIV32L utility does, see SIV support for 386/486/586 class + Alpha CPUs and 3dfx + S3 + SiS + Matrox + XGI + old ATI + NVidia GPUs - Testing Help

No. On Alpha NT 4.0 you need FX!32 to run 32-bit x86 exectuables, on Alpha Windows 2000 FX!32 is built in. I don't think there was a similar utility for PowerPC and MIPS, they only have the built-in RISC NT DOS emulator (I think it's based on the Insignia SoftPC), so you are limited to 16-bit executables.