HP/DEC/Compaq

Today, I figured I'd give AlphaNT a try, not NT4.0; but windows 2000RC2 "Professional" (build 2128) ... on alpha.

I dug up my trusty DS10; an adaptec 39160 an elsa gloria synergy, some old NT cdroms from a MSDN kit; and decided to give it a shot, for the sake of (bad) computer history. To spice things up a little, I've used a SSD with an Acard adapter (just because I'm out of non-defective scsi disks right now).

Since I'm not very familiar with windows, I'll just relate what I've done, you can shred some light on my mistakes in your posts below.

1) Partitioning.
Because I couldn't figure out how to partition a drive from ARC, I've done it from my laptop, using a SATA to USB adapter, leaving the boot partition as fat16, bootable, 10MB and another of 65,536MB for ntfs, as a second partition. Then I formatted the first partition from ARC.

2) Installation.
It's pretty straightforward, just make sure you have a first partition of 10MB (and not much more) for the boot files, and a second partition for the operating system. The installation is relatively fast and painless. When the installation is complete Setup asks you to write down the following information:



Then it reboots.

3) First boot.
After entering the information provided by Setup, the machine boots normally, it takes only a few seconds to reach the Wizard. Before I have the time to chose anything, Setup spends a few minutes and progress bars to detect devices.



Which it did.

After a few clicks (input devices, timezone, domain, etc.) Setup installs the "components" (I wonder what it installed previously), menu items, and finally: "Saves settings". This last step takes the longest time because the cdrom was greatly solicited while saving the settings (don't ask, I have no idea why).

When it asked for the date, I've entered year 2038, as it is an evaluation version; I want to give myself enough time to evaluate it properly.

Then it reboots.

4) Second boot.
This wizard helps me connect my computer to the network, great! It didn't even ask me for my ip address. Anyway.

It works! The resolution is very good, no need for another video card (this one also works fine with Tru64 and OpenVMS). It ships with Internet Explorer 5 (oh well). The network cards are detected without the need for additional drivers.

Next steps: Microsoft Word 97, Excel 97, Visual C++ 6.0 and FX!32.

How stable is this build? I always thought about installing it, but feared it would crash a lot. Isn't FX!32 built-in in Windows 2000 (in System Properties/Advanced/Perforamance options/x86 Programs, second picture in this post )?

So far, no crash. You are right FX!32 is built-in, I didn't know that. I've installed Word and Excel, putty and a vnc server so far; I'm now using it remotely.

I'm looking for:

- A native gnu toolkit for alpha. <--- Found it!
- a Xserver <--- Found it!
- a "recent" (native) version of firefox.

I'd say it's worth a try.

I found a copy of eXcursion (the X server for alphaNT), and sent firefox on the alphaNT workstation via the X protocol, it seems slow and hardly usable, I might be looking for something else; it's still fun though.

That's kind of cool in a train-wreck sort of way. But it's also really offensive

That's exactly the spirit I was feeling as I flipped through an old MSDN at work looking for NT/Alpha CDs the other week... Though in my case I've had a PWS500 with the ARC / non-SRM BIOS and a broken installation of NT/Alpha, and I seem to be unable to write a floppy to get the BIOS updated...

Man you guys are spoiled. If I had an Alpha box it would be running VMS. I can't imagine having so much Alpha hardware around that I would ever be willing to abuse even one junker with Windows!

Alpha.... hmmmm. Back on memory lane I had an Ollivetti labled Alpha 150/axp 'jensen' box. Really impressive big thing. Though I had access to the NT MSDN CD-ROMs I can't remember if I ever ran winders on it though... think there might be some usenet postings of mine from way back when calling for firmware and MILO support to get it booting. Ah, those were the days - as a astudent i lived down the road from a 'pc doctor' and every so often they'd get interesting things in that no 'sane' peecee person wanted. Never any SGI stuff though, just Sun, HP and DEC stuff

I would agree it's an embarrassment of riches if I hadn't spent $$$ collecting the things over the years. I have a number I'll hang onto, and I just want to show that this one functions properly before trying to find it a new home.

I found a bug in windows 2000 alpha build 2128 (but I suspect it is in the video driver), when the resolution is set to its maximum, the machine fails to complete the next boot, when it's set to its minimum (640x480x256) it boots well (then the resolution can be adjusted without rebooting. The workaround of course is to lower the resolution before each reboot. Because I'm a sensible person, I emailed a description of this issue to [email protected] , not forgetting to mention the architecture used, build number and hardware configuration.

We'll see what they say; if they make a service pack, I will buy some MSFT stock (don't count on that though).

If you have a valid support contract at mega bucks level they will create a patch, not a service pack. I was stepping through MSFT source code in Japan that my boss had access to via a VPN back to Redmond, and they had a patch specific for a NZ company that was causing problems with our device driver code.

R.

Whenever I run across the "reader feedback" cards in the back of DEC, Sun, or HP documentation I have a strong urge to fill them out and send them in, just to see what (if anything) happens...

It gives them a good laugh back at corporate.

Were those things available for Alpha? I don't remember them if they were. Or are you installing the x86 version and running them with the fx32 emulator?

They were indeed available for AlphaNT. They are amazingly fast there.