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x86 Emulation makes it to the H/PC - BOCHS 2.1.1

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C:Amie Page Icon Posted 2005-07-03 8:48 PM
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Sure, but what happens when you want to use a mouse and a modem
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takwu Page Icon Posted 2005-07-03 9:03 PM
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You mean... like... at the same time!? You're crazier than I thought!

But seriously, that's a good point... so what did Chris mean when he said he enabled the "mouse" by pressing F12? What did it do - was it an "emulated mouse" of some sort?

*edit* ok I reread it quickly. "rather clumsy stylus to mouse mapping". Well, so you don't need to use a real mouse and a modem at the same time, you can use that little thingy

Edited by takwu 2005-07-03 9:06 PM
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pengyou Page Icon Posted 2005-07-17 1:17 AM
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Interesting dialog. Does a linux upgrade entail less trouble than some kind of DOS/windows upgrade? I am wondering if it would be worthwhile in the future for a ppc or hpc mfg to offer 2 cf card slots - or maybe 2 SD card slots - on each model, one for data and one for the OS? This would solve the issues re: use of serial ports, modems, etc. If you want to use Linux that day you just pop in your linux card and go about your business...XP? Pop in the XP card and move on... A bit like the old Atari, Commodore or Coco days...

At first I was excited at the prospect of using DOS but then discovered the foolhardy ness of this quest. You see I have a P1 tablet PC that only has a 3 GB hard drive. I thought 'I will just install older DOS software on it so that I will be able to put more programs and data on it! Sounds good but I quickly discovered that there were no DOS word processors, spreadsheets, etc that produced windows compatible files. Yes, you can store data in notepad and then copy it but then there are no formatting or special conditions along with it.

Personally I would cast my vote for more development along the Linux lines. First of all the OS is free. Secondly it seems to be cooperative to people who like to tinker "under the hood".
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C:Amie Page Icon Posted 2005-07-17 7:49 AM
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http://www.hpcfactor.com/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=726&star...

If you have a look through this thread, specifically my graph in there, it exemplifies why we don't see OS's booting from solid state cards.

Offering two SD slots on a H/PC chassis is a no-brainer, there is the space to do it. Two CF is more difficult without loosing the PC Card area - though if you convert the PC Card slot with an adapter you can do this already.

There are compatible wordprocessors and spreadsheets for DOS, there's even most of MS Office for DOS. Of course the file formats have changed since then, and you have to use the lowest common file format between them, but it's still .doc.
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Snappy! Page Icon Posted 2005-07-17 8:41 AM
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pengyou - 2005-07-16 11:17 PM

Interesting dialog. Does a linux upgrade entail less trouble than some kind of DOS/windows upgrade? I am wondering if it would be worthwhile in the future for a ppc or hpc mfg to offer 2 cf card slots - or maybe 2 SD card slots - on each model, one for data and one for the OS? This would solve the issues re: use of serial ports, modems, etc. If you want to use Linux that day you just pop in your linux card and go about your business...XP? Pop in the XP card and move on... A bit like the old Atari, Commodore or Coco days...

At first I was excited at the prospect of using DOS but then discovered the foolhardy ness of this quest. You see I have a P1 tablet PC that only has a 3 GB hard drive. I thought 'I will just install older DOS software on it so that I will be able to put more programs and data on it! Sounds good but I quickly discovered that there were no DOS word processors, spreadsheets, etc that produced windows compatible files. Yes, you can store data in notepad and then copy it but then there are no formatting or special conditions along with it.

Personally I would cast my vote for more development along the Linux lines. First of all the OS is free. Secondly it seems to be cooperative to people who like to tinker "under the hood".


yeah, DOS is so "long" ago that sometimes I forget what ran on them. There was WordStar, Lotus 123 (Symphony), Formtools and WordPerfect, Harvard Graphics etc. Alley cat, Rescue Raiders ... oops, the last two are games! But yes, no DOS apps that supports word format. Though I think there may be filters in modern word to read old MSWord format. Anyone can recall or remember?

As for the CF/OS concept, here's my take on it:

Its possible! After all, that's how some of the *nux distro for HPCs are doing, esp for those older HPCs without a flashrom, think jlime for J680. It basically boots up from the CF card. If existing HPCs (PPCs and other similar devices) can restore from an image on ROM, I don't see why it cannot restore from an image on a CF card. After restoring, it should run as per normal with the SDRAM.

So instead of running an OS off a CF card (or SD for that matter), you can have a device load up its OS from a CF card, then run as usual. That way, you can swap your OS after booting up. It still means that the device need some flashROM inside for a bootloader and for storing the OS that is loaded from the CF card. hmmm ... wait a minute, that is how the SL4 works right now!

In order to run an OS directly off a CF card, the CF card may need to be a SRAM card instead of a normal CF card. Then it can store the OS as it is. oh well ... ...
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C:Amie Page Icon Posted 2005-07-17 9:21 AM
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See what I said about re lowest common denominator filters.

I was about to say that a modular SRAM style specification would be the way to go. The Velo, back int he day had RAM expansion options. These were CF card size chips that were seen by WinCE 1 and 2 as internal RAM.

With that as precedence for expansion cards being seen as part of the object store, creating a FlashROM version of that on future hardware, and ejecting in/out as a hybridised Physical ROM / FlashROM technology is a possibility backed in 1997 fact. Make them buffered NAND or plain NOR if you don't want it memory resident, and simply add BIOS boot firmware for the bus.

Alas I think it would be seen many manufacturers as overkill for the consumer market (I would tend to agree with them), and something pushing the PDA towards an open source fututre. I could easily see Microsoft resisting it on principle.
What with them impliementing technology to QFE Windows Mobile 5.0 devices in-place into the ROM area the market place is setup nicely for some desktop level progression in the PDA market.
When it comes down to it though, how many of us really need to be swapping out OS's on a PDA? These aren't aimed to be PC's. People need the correct functionality for the mobile task, and stick with what works - whether that be linux, Windows or Palm.
The odds on people wanting to upheave their PIM, sync software, desktop PIM client, PDA software and of course initiate a hard reset, on a regular basis for anything other than tinkering is going to feature heavily in the smallest minority of cases.
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Snappy! Page Icon Posted 2005-07-17 12:51 PM
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Well, I'm with you on most of the stance, including that MS would resist such a platform/design.

However, the beauty of such a system would be that 3rd party vendors may be able to release OS cards to be had for $$. This would help improve the lifespan of these class of devices.

Of cos when that happens, then we'll be complaining that the hardware is obsolete and cannot be upgraded! ... And we'll ask for an open system ... like ... like the wintel desktop "monopoly"!! ... but that's another story for another thread!
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cmonex Page Icon Posted 2005-07-17 1:31 PM
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i agree, it would be too much of an overkill not even i would bother with it.
what's buffered NAND?
about WM 5, i consider it a very bad idea... very, very bad. the devices will be significantly slower and a hard reset won't be as easy and i'd be afraid the flashrom couldn't endure IE's cache or other write intensive applications for long...
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C:Amie Page Icon Posted 2005-07-17 4:43 PM
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Snappy,

No doubt it could. But those same people can just get the information for the bootloader mount point and write their own flash image for existing generation devices - which they aren't. Why would you need a hardware solution adding to the expense for them to do that.

cmonex,
Impliment the Object Store correctly and don't cache IE into the IPSM. On the app front, this is a down side of any Flash, whether it's NAND, NOR or the layering in your CF card.
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cmonex Page Icon Posted 2005-07-17 5:43 PM
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oh yes, if you don't mind the slowdown, that leaves only the hard reset problem (too complicated especially when you're away from your PC) unsolved. i don't like that either
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John Kelopi
John Kelopi Page Icon Posted 2005-08-07 12:59 AM
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hi!
I have Windows CE 5.0 emulator on my compaq 2010c
So Fast!
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