Next up....a....BeBOX!

[eightbit]

16 hours ago, Osgeld said:

not to poop on your taco but it could still have cap issues just from age, depends on how it was stored. But yea the board you are currently trying to use sounds like it has "something" wrong with it.... causing buss hogging issues or maybe something tripping an interrupt constantly / randomly 

 

random thought, does it have any tantalum's?

 

It does not, but I suspect you are right and the smaller caps need replacing as well. But the heck with that. This particular board has a ton of them and it is just not worth my time and investment considering a new board ran me $20. I actually purchased two NOS boards since they were so cheap. 

 

Now, they are also old and might need recapping one day (or soon) but at least I know what these boards have been through...nothing. This board I am taking out however I have no idea about the history. It could have had problems from day one and the original owner just tossed it aside.

 

Thankfully these aren't uber rare (yet). If it were I would be much more inclined to work on it. 

 

At this point I just want to get this build done and play around with some games and stuff

 

[eightbit]

Back in business! The Gainward boards arrived (ordered two of them since $20 for NOS P2 boards don't come around that often!) and I am happy to say this board works perfectly! Huge difference....the PII 450 is actually fast...lol! 

 

I'll get some pics together soon. This build has come together nicely! 

[+x=usr(1536)]

On 5/25/2022 at 11:29 PM, eightbit said:

In the late 90's (around 1998 I believe) I had discovered the wonderful world of BeOS (the Be operating system).

Oh, man, I wish I'd noticed this thread sooner.  BeOS is a particular favourite of mine, and I still have two BeBoxes (one Hobbit, one PPC).

On 5/25/2022 at 11:29 PM, eightbit said:

I was using the excellent "Soundplay" app at the time...which I paid for since it was that great.

Yep, by Marco Nellisen.  I remember Soundplay well; it was way ahead of everything else out there at the time, and still has features that are unheard of today.

On 5/25/2022 at 11:29 PM, eightbit said:

BeOS is not as easy to get running on systems. It expects specific hardware.

True on both counts.  However:

On 5/25/2022 at 11:29 PM, eightbit said:

It only runs currently partially correct on my Pentium 1 build. It will not run on the PIII,

This doesn't jive with my recollections   I ran both R4, R4.5, and R5 on a dual P3/600.  EPoX KP6-BS motherboard, IIRC.  Both the terms 'PoX' and 'BS' in its model name were 100% right on the money, but it did run on it, Slot 1 CPUs and all.

On 5/25/2022 at 11:29 PM, eightbit said:

P4, or my modern builds of course due to motherboard chipset incompatibilities.

Yep, modern chipsets are pretty much a no-go.  ISTR that some P4s were supported, but that many of them wouldn't work depending on when the CPU in question hit the market.  The closer to / after Be's demise, the less likely it was to be compatible.  That may also have been down to chipset revisions supporting the P4, though.  Unfortunately it's not something I've had to think about in close to 20 years, so my recollections could be off-base, however.

 

FWIW, it's possible that you may be thinking of the Apple G4 CPU range.  This is absolutely not supported, largely due to Apple refusing to release documentation to Be that would be needed to rebuild the OS for that architecture.

On 5/25/2022 at 11:29 PM, eightbit said:

So I basically have to be a bit dedicated to make this work...just like I was way back when

Yes, but it's 10000% worth it - just like it was back then   Did you have any luck with it?

[+x=usr(1536)]

On 5/27/2022 at 4:44 AM, Gemintronic said:

Then they flubbed it with the weird mini appliance thing and went into tangents.

Yep, the BeIA platform.  BeOS optimised for low-end hardware (think Cyrix MediaGX chipsets) with small amounts of RAM.  Used in the Compaq Clipper, Microsoft version of the Clipper, Sony eVilla, and a couple of others that were even less significant.  Did not have binary compatibility with BeOS, which limited its software library significantly.

 

I may still have a Clipper around here somewhere.  Last I remember it was in pieces about 15 years ago due to needing to remove the disk-on-chip unit and replace it with one that wasn't toast.  Can't recall if I ever finished that particular job or not; if not, it was no great loss to the world of computing.

[polyex]

On 5/26/2022 at 11:26 AM, Leonard Smith said:

I remember being into fringe operating systems and devices.  
 

Then I began working for a large multinational corporation and realized that the world essentially runs on Windows.

It was easier to simply focus on learning Windows apps and programs versus trying to run against the herd and spending time/effort jumping through hoops to get my work done on a Mac (or Linux) device.

 

 

Tell me about it, I wrote commercial software for BeOS

[eightbit]

On 1/29/2023 at 7:17 PM, x=usr(1536) said:

This doesn't jive with my recollections   I ran both R4, R4.5, and R5 on a dual P3/600.  EPoX KP6-BS motherboard, IIRC.  Both the terms 'PoX' and 'BS' in its model name were 100% right on the money, but it did run on it, Slot 1 CPUs and all.

 

 

It definitely runs on Pentium III machines...just not *mine*   

 

The only PIII machine I had when I posted that was some Compaq machine with an OEM Compaq motherboard. BeOS would not boot on that machine for some reason. I guess it did not like the hardware.

[+x=usr(1536)]

9 hours ago, eightbit said:

The only PIII machine I had when I posted that was some Compaq machine with an OEM Compaq motherboard. BeOS would not boot on that machine for some reason. I guess it did not like the hardware.

Oh, yeah, Compaq was notorious for incompatibility issues.  Ditto e-Machines, Packard-Bells, and even some HPs and Dells.

 

BeOS was probably one of the very few OSes released for public consumption where compatibility was better with white-box hardware - provided you stuck to the compatibility limits.  

[Keatah]

5 hours ago, x=usr(1536) said:

BeOS was probably one of the very few OSes released for public consumption where compatibility was better with white-box hardware - provided you stuck to the compatibility limits.  

I would disagree. That there were compatibility limits is something to think about. And white-box hardware was always more compatible to begin with, with any OS.

 

I recall using and migrating Windows up and down several generations of hardware, white-box or branded. And never had any problems or limits like with BeOS. Never gave a thought to whether something was hp, compaq, dell, or a hodgepodge homebuilt. If it was "x86 and PC" it got Dos/Windows and that was that.

 

Of the compatibility problem I encountered in x86 & PC, most stemmed from sunsetting hardware and the new replacement standards not being physically capable of interfacing. I used my first ISA graphics card from the 486 times all the way through P-III era. Not ALL the time, but just enough to jumpstart the system as I was piecing it together. That stopped when the P4 came out and didn't have ISA slots. Had it had the correct slot, Windows would have supported it.

[+OLD CS1]

8 hours ago, x=usr(1536) said:

Oh, yeah, Compaq was notorious for incompatibility issues.

And quality.  In the late 90s, I worked for a local computer shop which was a Compaq warranty center.  We averaged almost two machines a day, up until Compaq changed the program to push out independent shops like ours.

[+x=usr(1536)]

3 hours ago, Keatah said:

I would disagree. That there were compatibility limits is something to think about.

Point taken, but the design ethos behind BeOS was to support a small subset of hardware extremely well.  Most of it boiled down to chipset compatibility (NE2000-based network cards being a particularly broad one), but some of it was very specific.  It was never trying to match Windows (or even Linux) for the amount of devices supported, but rather to wring every ounce of performance out of the devices that it did support.

3 hours ago, Keatah said:

And white-box hardware was always more compatible to begin with, with any OS.

For the most part, sure.  But I've seen white-box hardware that made even Compaq's worst Presario model look like a bastion of Plug & Play standards adherence.  For BeOS, though, it was typically pretty easy for someone to put together a high-performance white-box machine just by following the recommended hardware list.  On Windows (at the time), you never knew how one driver might step on another, for example.  And, if it did, if it was a hardware incompatibility, a driver problem, or both.  With BeOS it was almost always go/no-go.

3 hours ago, Keatah said:

I recall using and migrating Windows up and down several generations of hardware, white-box or branded. And never had any problems or limits like with BeOS. Never gave a thought to whether something was hp, compaq, dell, or a hodgepodge homebuilt. If it was "x86 and PC" it got Dos/Windows and that was that.

Same here.  And pretty much any x86 box would run DOS or Windows; it's what they were basically deigned for.  But the question was how well it would run it, especially pre-XP.

 

Granted, that is a broad generalisation.  What I'm saying is that every OS has its strengths and shortcomings, and while DOS and Windows were great at being general-purpose OSes, they weren't geared towards outright performance from the kernel on up.  Compatibility, absolutely.  But their architecture never encouraged a fast-first approach to their design.

[+x=usr(1536)]

On 2/8/2023 at 1:30 AM, polyex said:

Tell me about it, I wrote commercial software for BeOS

What timeframe was that in?  We may have some commonalities in that department.

[polyex]

5 hours ago, x=usr(1536) said:

What timeframe was that in?  We may have some commonalities in that department.

1997 or so

 

[+x=usr(1536)]

8 hours ago, polyex said:

1997 or so

1999 to 2001 here.

[polyex]

 

Yeah, by 2001 I had called it quits tooo.

[+x=usr(1536)]

21 hours ago, polyex said:

Yeah, by 2001 I had called it quits tooo.

Not much choice after the dot-bomb hit, sadly.

 

Still have a Hobbit and dual PPC133 BeBox kicking around.  Haven't fired them up in years; thinking of letting them go at some point.