So I've found this computer recently at my friend's. He said he's okay with giving it to me, and I am thinking if it could run Linux. So I tried googling what model is it and what is its hardware.
Unfortunately, Google/Startpage give shit when asked about "Inswell Systems". Two questions: have you ever heard of these Inswell machines and if I can install loonix on 8088 processor (one auction site lists that, not confident if it's true).
PS: not an actual photo of the machine - I did not have my phone and couldn't take a photo, but it is identical to the one on pic related. The only difference is that my one has one floppy drive replaced.
No, there's no way you can install loonix on that But DOS is /comfy/ and maybe you can get like 100 bucks from that thing by selling it on ebay Also see if you can get pic related to run on that thing
That's a generic XT clone. Those usually max out at 640k ram and don't even have protected mode. There is simply no way you're running Linux on it. If it has the factory 8088, you could install an NEC V20 in it to gain some performance, that with an XTIDE would make for a pretty comfy early DOS machine.
Dominic Sanders
a very old version of linux. but you're better off with dos or win 3.1 might be able to update it to 95 if it has enough ram
Isaiah Turner
Nah. First version of loonix was for 386
Elijah Perez
It won't run any Linux, Windows 3.1 or 95. The last Windows it'll run is 3.0, since all later installments need protected mode. And 3.0 runs like absolute shit even on Turbo XTs. And how exactly is he going to run SymbOS on an IBM clone?
Brandon Gonzalez
I thought there was a port for ibm pc clones There are a lot of symbos ports for a lot of 8 bit machines, why not the 8088
Brayden Sullivan
>why not the 8088 Because it's written in Z80 assembly and the 8088 is quite clearly not a Z80, you dumb fuck. Notice how all the machines it's been ported to are Z80-based.
Henry Morris
ooo never knew thank you for making me learned
Connor Morales
No need to be rude
Jacob Carter
No and no. Maybe an old version of BSD or Unix. Best bet would be DOS of some flavor, probably max out at 4.0.
Liam Smith
...
Adrian Powell
I didn't mean to be rude, I'm just used to saying everything like that on here. Sorry. I think the only UNIX that runs on an 8088 is Xenix. But I wouldn't do that. All MS-DOS versions run on the XT, surprisingly enough, and I think recent versions of FreeDOS do too. I run MS-DOS 5.0 on mine. Something cool OP could try is GEM. Pretty damn comfy, and as much as people like to shit on the non-macintosh system copycat versions, I find 3.11 quite comfy. Pic related.
And as I was typing that post, the drive had a head crash and now my XT is dead. Just fuck my shit up
Jayden Green
OP here. Sorry that bringing up this subject grudged your machine.
I'm in Poland. I saw two auctions selling these for 50 ameribucks' equivalent. I highly doubt that making it run something will make it more worth selling. But I want to run it because feels.
>Sorry that bringing up this subject grudged your machine. Weirdly enough I reseated the drive cables and it booted up again. Not the first time it happens. I did hear a bit of a click, though, wonder if that was just parking the heads when it lost communications with the system. It's one of the earliest drives with an autoparking system, so I'll just tell myself that. >But I want to run it because feels. Do you have the monitor for it? Because unless you have a VGA card installed, you'll need a TTL-compatible monitor for it. Or I guess you could use composite CGA, if you happen to have a clone card with such an option fitted (not very common).
>Because unless you have a VGA card installed, you'll need a TTL-compatible monitor for it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the main difference between CGA and VGA signals is the signal levels and the lack of the "intensity" signal, but in which case it should be possible to just wire up some resistors to make an adapter, no?
Matthew Richardson
Yes, but this machine probably doesn't have VGA output.
Luis Rogers
Yes, but this computer predates that. MGA, CGA, Hercules and EGA all use a 9 pin D-Sub connector and send their data as a series of digital pulses at TTL levels. It's not just the signal levels. VGA, being analog, depends on the cable being 75Ohm terminated at the monitor end. That drives down the voltage on TTL signals and makes them unusable. Plus all the TTL modes use scanrates way outside of what most VGA monitors can do, since monitors like the 5151 and the 5153 were little more than dumbed-down 15KHz TV sets. You need some active componentry to convert CGA into VGA.
Carson Sanchez
I am so glad to see Jow Forums is still a technical board.
okay, scratch that. I just noticed these are old parallel ports, neither has 3 rows of pins...
Guess I'd need to buy an old, probably crt display with a cable.
Xavier Flores
>mono/g Nope. You need a TTL monitor or an ISA VGA card compatible with XTs. By the way, do you have the keyboard for it? Because that's something else you can't adapt from PS/2. The signalling is the same, and in the case of the AT the connector is too (which is why you can adapt PS/2 keyboards to DIN for ATs), but on the XT the scancodes are completely different.
Jack Robinson
I think I have a keyboard with PS/2 somewhere, if you mean that it will work.
And I've checked that there were many clones of this computer in Eastern Europe at the end of socialism. Used processors like 8086 and NEC v20
Sorry, I have no real experience with pre-1990 technology, but also really like it for some reason and wanted to give some life to this old machine.
Ayden James
>if you mean that it will work Nope. Unless it has an AT/XT switch, a PS/2 keyboard won't work. XTs only work with XT keyboards.
Matthew Barnes
>And 3.0 runs like absolute shit even on Turbo XTs. Nope. 10+ MHz V20 TuroXTs run W3.0 fine.
Thomas Nguyen
>Plus all the TTL modes use scanrates way outside of what most VGA monitors can do, since monitors like the 5151 and the 5153 were little more than dumbed-down 15KHz TV sets. Surely any monitor capable of displaying 320x200@60Hz (which should be all of them, since that's a standard VGA mode) would be capable of all of those modes, frequency-wise?
Michael Flores
>depends on the cable being 75Ohm terminated at the monitor end I see. It does sound like it still shouldn't be *too* hard to make an adapter with a transistor or two per channel, though, right? That would require a power supply, of course, so I agree it's much less practical.
Ian Smith
Niggy, I know what I'm talking about. This is an 8MHz V20 w/ 640k ram, and 3.0 is dogslow. >10+ MHz XT Yeah, I, too, like my expansion cards shitting themselves constantly. >320x200@60Hz >standard VGA mode Now try doing it on your VGA monitor. Scandoublers exist for a reason, and that's because VGA monitors can't display 15KHz HSync signals unless they're also designed to do TV RGB. You would also need a scan doubler, as mentioned.
>Scandoublers Ohh, is that why I've always thought that pixels on 320x200 seem to be made of two separate scanlines on CRT monitors? I never realized. How does it make sense for VGA monitors to not support that natively, though, when 320x200@8bpp has always been a standard mode on VGA?
Ayden Martinez
Because they're technically SVGA monitors, not VGA. Super VGA is a spec made by Taiwanese clone makers in the 90s, and as such it doesn't include mandatory retrocompatibility for VGA modes because the extra circuitry needed would cost more money to implement. This kind of shit is why I hate Wintel boxes so much.
Jayden Nelson
Look at ELKS, a stripped down Linux that can run on 8088. Or there's Minix available as floppy images for it.
Justin Price
I'd like to correct myself. The spec wasn't really made by Taiwanese clone makers, it was made by IBM. But it was such a vague spec that Taiwanese clone makers implemented only its lowest expression (800x600), and so that's what stuck and what everyone else did.
Julian Reed
>as such it doesn't include mandatory retrocompatibility for VGA modes because the extra circuitry needed would cost more money to implement That seems to imply that an original VGA monitor would display those 15 kHz modes, but that seems to contradict what you said in .
David Hughes
The mode is still supported even if the card internally scan doubles it to output to analog.
Thomas Powell
Yes, I'm dumb. At first I wrote "modern VGA", but then I deleted it. Proper VGA monitors should in fact display that, but sadly there's not too many of them. Most are SVGA. Chances are, if OP doesn't have a TTL monitor, he won't have a VGA monitor either. But we're talking about taking the video out of the MGA card in OP's machine. Of course all modern cards try and do scandoubling when told to output such a signal, and in fact that's why it's such a pain to connect them to TVs via SCART, because the damn things won't output a 15KHz signal even if told to.
Colton Flores
>Proper VGA monitors should in fact display that Cool, that's interesting to know.
Angel Peterson
x200@60Hz >>standard VGA mode >Now try doing it on your VGA monitor. that's indeed mode13h many vga games run with it
Thomas Torres
Well ya... You're trying to connect something to a TV that is not a compatible standard. There's a reason they made PC to TV converters of various sorts.
Mason Ward
>his expansion cards can't even handle 10MHz My 286 machine does 12MHz fine. And I do mean the ISA clock.
Samuel Hall
Some late XT BIOSes apparently can handle AT keyboards
Robert Hughes
Multiscan monitors that can do 15kHz can display MDA/MGA, CGA, EGA TTL just means the signal is either on or off, VGA multiscan monitors will interpret this as either no intensity or full intensity
For other VGA monitors you need a scandoubler but not a linedoubler
Andrew White
I know, I'm stupid. Modern cards will scandouble it internally, and modern monitors won't display it on older cards which output the proper signal because they're technically SVGA and not VGA. Original VGA at 320x200 60Hz should be perfectly compatible with SCART if the sync pulses are turned into CSync. Same video levels, same cable termination impedance, same scanrates. The reason why modern cards are incompatible is because they scandouble the signals. That must be one shitty 286 board you have if it doesn't decouple the ISA clock from the CPU clock. But OP's clone doesn't exactly look like a late clone. The possibility is definitely there, but most XTs I've found with such a feature were made way into the 386 era and they were very low cost machines. OP's looks like a Pravetz-style almost 1:1 clone of an original XT.
Levi Foster
>That must be one shitty 286 board you have if it doesn't decouple the ISA clock from the CPU clock. perfect for a I/O + drive controller card that can handle it
Jaxson Martin
>Modern cards will scandouble it internally, and modern monitors won't display it on older cards which output the proper signal because they're technically SVGA and not VGA. there is nothing to scandouble for mode13, it always was proper 31kHz you only need to scandouble for said monitor to pick up CGA, etc
Juan Campbell
200/400 lines is 70Hz tho
Caleb Cruz
Right you are. And so are you. Damn, I really should shut my yap now, as I don't really know that much about Wintel trash past the XT era or so.
Juan Wilson
Hey. So I will try to post some photos tomorrow, but it looks almost exactly like this one:
>I didn't mean to be rude, I'm just used to saying everything like that on here. Sorry.
Just because a few dumb fucks on this board talk like that doesn't mean you should follow their example.
Anyway, these things are too old - the best upgrade for them is a NEC V20 and even that can't do much. It's an a e s t h e t i c paperweight. If it were an original IBM 5150/60 you could get a good price for it as they have a high collector's value, being the first ever PC and everything.
The closest thing to running Linux on it would be if you use it as a dumb terminal and connect to a more modern machine running linux. You might have some fun running the 8088 corruption demo in it.
Camden Robinson
>Just because a few dumb fucks on this board talk like that doesn't mean you should follow their example. I agree with this user. We let the retarded baiting minority ruin the whole board just because. Stop.
Sebastian Nelson
>The closest thing to running Linux on it would be if you use it as a dumb terminal and connect to a more modern machine running linux. You could bet Xenix or Coherent running on it.
