Can I get HPC 2000 on CD?

I have heard that it's possible to get Windows CE for x86 notebooks. Is this true?

Is it possible to get HPC 2000 on CD for MIPS? I have Windows NT4 for a variety of processors including x86 and MIPS, and I know it's possible to put Linux on an HPC. Is it possible to upgrade an HPC - for example, an IBM Z50 from HPC Pro to HPC 2000 - using a CD type installation?

Most HPC's don't have a CD ROM, but even on some x86 subnotebooks, you have to copy the install folder to the hard drive (or a CF) in another computer. It seems easy enough, but where do I get the OS?

How would you install the OS? You know the z50 has its OS on a non-flashable ROM chip.

How would I install Linux? It doesn't go in ROM. The Z50 also has a compact flash.

Obviously any OS upgrade or alternative OS for an HPC would be installed to the "hard drive" (CF/microdrive).

But is HPC 2000 available on CD?

No it isn't.

CE isn't packaged like normal Windows. Every CE rom is built for the specific hardware components on the device at considerable expense to the OEM. HPC2000, a CE Platform was even more expensive to implement.

Ok, so the rumor that it's available for x86 PC's probably isn't true either. What about Windows NT4? It comes with a MIPS version (and several others) on the standard Microsoft CD. Has it ever been successfully installed on an HPC?

Windows CE 3.0 and even HPC2000 were available on x86 from the platform builder. I have a bootable image for it under MS Virtual PC in the support section. Its no use to you though it's designed for a 440BX BSP - in otherwords it was built to work on a 440BX and nothing else.

You need a MIPS R4000 processor to run NT 4.0 and you have no way of getting the operating system to boot strap as the H/PC BIOS only attempts to address the rom chip. Unless you wanted to try and write a bootloader do overwrite the necessary memory addresses for the soft-startup processes.
Even then there wouldn't be any drivers for it and NT would probably flake out pretty quickly into the boot process as it couldn't understand how to initialise the HAL for the embedded architecture - even if you have a R4000 device.

I think NT 4 embedded was last included as a sub-option with XP embedded. But like C:Amie says, the bootloading process is different for the majority of non-x86 CPUs, and NT4 was a pain even with defacto x86 hardware.
I'd hazard a guess that's what MS use internally for XBOX 360 (PowerPC) development. (or has spun it off from embedded tools) The PowerPC compiler/assembler is still part of eVT3, but the supporting libraries and runtimes are absent.





Edited by technogeist2k9 2010-09-09 7:24 PM

x86 is still supported in CE6 r3.

> Its no use to you though it's designed for a 440BX BSP - in otherwords it was built to work on a 440BX and nothing else.

That's interesting - my ThinkPad 600X has a 440BX chipset. The 240 (same size as the Z50) has a 440DX. *Probably* not compatible...?

> I have a bootable image for it under MS Virtual PC in the support section.

OK, suppose I decide to try it - how do I install it to a hard drive partition?

>You need a MIPS R4000 processor to run NT 4.0

The Z50 has an NEC VR4121, and <brag> my new Casio Cassiopeia E-125 </brag> has an NEC VR4122.

> and you have no way of getting the operating system to boot strap as the H/PC BIOS only attempts to address the rom chip.

Then how do people get Linux to boot on an HPC? It can't be that hard can it?

>Even then there wouldn't be any drivers for it and NT would probably flake out pretty quickly into the boot process

Oh. Well, it was worth looking into, anyway.

>NT4 was a pain even with defacto x86 hardware.

If you think it's bad under normal conditions, try puting it on a 128 gig FAT32 partition. It's been done. What, you thought I was the *only* completely insane nerd?

@BookWorm

I think you're confused.
You appear to be referring to the desktop version of NT, which used to be available for x86/MIPS/PowerPC/Alpha. The embedded OS version is not the the same as desktop version, although, because of the earlier support for those processors on the desktop version, it's easy to see why this confusion has arisen.

As it has already been pointed out, the HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) is also machine specific. It is *the* fundamental 'bridge' that allows NT to run on different processors architectures. There maybe an OAL (OEM Adaptation Layer) too.
The HAL and OAL are mostly OEM specific, and produced by the OEM, because the hardware is *known* at production time. Unlike desktop version of NT which has to adapt to different hardware configurations at install time. It's 'the fundamental difference between the desktop version and the embedded one.

Virtual PC hardware also requires a specific video card (S3), so you could be looking at a VGA display with 16 colours only. If you even get that far into the boot process.


Edited by technogeist2k9 2010-09-10 7:50 AM

As with Virtual PC the image may boot on it, however you probably wont find that much else works with it.


Ghost my freedos partition from the VHD onto the hard drive. You HAVE to boot it via DOS, DOS hands off to CE.


They wrote said utility to swap BSD (in the case of the z50) into active memory.

Ah fat32 drives for NT 4 have been around for donkeys years, your insanity for doing that hardly registers around here

technogeist2k9 is also correct in his assumption over the video state. CE has has a VESA compatible generic driver on it, however the CE3 one can't talk to the Virtualised hardware properly. CE 4 and above have no such problem. Consqeuently you wind up with a 320x240 display and half of the UI drawing off screen.

If you ever need to target CE 3.0 and PowerPC with eVC3, install the Bookeen Cybook SDK on their website. That includes most of your basic support libs for a 3.0 WinCE OS on PowerPC. Of course, getting an application you compile to run on anything that isn't already configured to run WinCE is another story
entirely. Just as with the MIPS boards, you'd still need to write your own custom drivers and OAL/bootloader for your specific hardware. Though, maybe porting some of the newer kernels like 5.0, 6.0 or 7.0 would make it a little easier for you.


As for x86; that is doable if you have the right hardware or your motherboard manufacturer provided specific CE drivers. Believe it or not, some actually have them right on their support website. Especially the miniITX and mobile Intel boards. Though, you would still need to customize, configure and generate your own OS image just as a big OEM targeting PDA hardware would.

Also, ReactOS might someday be a viable Windows NT-like OS for PowerPC and MIPS.

Edited by TFGBD 2010-09-17 12:43 AM