[jaclaz]

dencorso, on Oct 18 2009, 09:48 AM, said:

And thanks for the heads up about SD cards, I didn't know that. BTW, was it a true SD or a SDHC card you used?

Yep ,and if I may , the report should be changed to

• SD card partitioned/formatted as ....
  
• through card reader make/model.....
  
• card make/model/type..... size .....

I presume that not all card readers and not all kinds of partitioning/formatting will work (or will fail to work) - though I don't think that SD vs. SDHC may make a difference, if partitioned/formated in the "right" way and connected through a "right" reader.

jaclaz

This post has been edited by jaclaz: 18 October 2009 - 12:18 PM

[Sfor]

That's not exactly the case, as we were referring to the built in card reader.

In any case it was a plane 2GB SD card, as far as I know.

[jaclaz]

Sfor, on Oct 18 2009, 07:39 PM, said:

That's not exactly the case, as we were referring to the built in card reader.

Sorry , I thought that this meant:

Sfor, on Oct 18 2009, 09:04 AM, said:

The built in Alt-F2 update procedure does not support SD card USB devices. A pen drive is necesary.

that you were trying a USB SD card reader....

Sfor, on Oct 18 2009, 07:39 PM, said:

In any case it was a plane 2GB SD card, as far as I know.

Yep, but was it partitioned or "superfloppy"?

jaclaz

[Sfor]

The built in card reader is an USB device as well. It is possible to boot the system from it the same way as from other USB devices. The SD cards are treated by BIOS the same way as pen drives. So, they are mounted as hard drives, and can be partitioned. Still, the built in BIOS flash routine does not seem to be able to use it.

This post has been edited by Sfor: 18 October 2009 - 12:33 PM

[jaclaz]

Sfor, on Oct 18 2009, 08:30 PM, said:

The built in card reader is an USB device as well. It is possible to boot the system from it the same way as from other USB devices. The SD cards are treated by BIOS the same way as pen drives. So, they are mounted as hard drives, and can be partitioned. Still, the built in BIOS flash routine does not seem to be able to use it.

Yep, now I understand what you were saying.

I simply "visualized" in my mind a thingy like this one:




jaclaz

[dencorso]

jaclaz, on Oct 18 2009, 05:08 PM, said:

I simply "visualized" in my mind a thingy like this one:

Which is quite understandable. In fact, the Eee PC is a strange beast because it offers 3 external USB ports, and a MMC/SD/SDHC card reader. But, internally, the card reader is connected through a dedicated USB port, which, in fact, is the "missing" fourth port, since USB ports always come in pairs. Stranger still is the fact that the internal Wi-Fi is also connected through another dedicated usb port. But the really awesome part is that there are still two more otherwise unused USB ports inside, that the more aventurous modders can recover with soldering iron, care and some good luck, as you can read here and here.

[jaclaz]

dencorso, on Oct 19 2009, 12:08 PM, said:

jaclaz, on Oct 18 2009, 05:08 PM, said:

I simply "visualized" in my mind a thingy like this one:

Which is quite understandable. In fact, the Eee PC is a strange beast because it offers 3 external USB ports, and a MMC/SD/SDHC card reader. But internally, the card reader is connected through a dedicated USB port. Stranger still is the fact that the internal Wi-Fi is also connected through another dedicated usb port.

At the risk of going OFF TOPIC , I guess that it could lead, in due time and with the hopefully coming of USB 3.0 speeds, to a revolution in the way PC's are made (not only netbooks).

I mean once we actually have a "really Universal" and "really Fast" BUS, a PC may become a "core" with CPU+a USB hub, to which you could attach any kind of device, including network card, video card, audio card and what not, a truly modular and easily upgradable solution.

Still off-topic, have a look at this interesting approach to PE portability :
http://www.boot-land...?showtopic=5634

A PC in a foreseeable future may resemble a big USB hub to which you connect all your external devices.....

Now, REALLY off-topic, a crazy idea someone actually created:
http://ohlssonvox.8k.com/fdd_raid.htm

jaclaz

[dencorso]

jaclaz, on Oct 19 2009, 08:57 AM, said:

Now, REALLY off-topic, a crazy idea someone actually created: http://ohlssonvox.8k.com/fdd_raid.htm

Great find, jaclaz! The fdd raid really deserves the trophy!

[iWindoze]

dencorso, on Oct 10 2009, 10:56 PM, said:

No.

Oh well. I was hoping we would see some action on this since the eeepcs (and most netbooks) are a known hardware set with mostly complete FOSS drivers to crib from. If we are to see Win98SE take center stage again for one last bow on modern hardware the netbook seems to me to be its best opportunity. If we could only get someone who has experience in writing drivers for the OS to look through the Win98 driver kit and hack away...

--iWindoze

[Sfor]

The newer operating systems do have a significantly better power management abilities. So, Windows 98 is not a particulary good choice for mobile computers. I strongly doubt in it's ability to take the central stage.

Personaly, I'm preferring to use Xandros when working without the power adaptor, as it seems to work longer on the battery power. I'm using Windows 98 when I do have an external power attached, or when I need to troubleshoot some ethernet network related problems.

[iWindoze]

Sfor, on Oct 23 2009, 12:25 AM, said:

The newer operating systems do have a significantly better power management abilities. So, Windows 98 is not a particulary good choice for mobile computers. I strongly doubt in it's ability to take the central stage.

Well bear in mind we're not exactly using proper drivers now and the ones we have are not likely to have been optimized all that much.

Speaking of bears, did anyone manaage to save the bearwindows video drivers? His site was one of the many that suffered webrot due to the death of Geocities. The documentation can be retrieved via the internetarchive, but not the drivers themselves. See:

http://web.archive.org/web/20080118204712/...ndows/vbe9x.htm

I suspect if we were to ever get good drivers based on what can be gleaned from the FOSS drivers we'd get much better battery life out of our eeepcs even in Win9x. Unfortunately there don't seem to be any low level driver programmers willing to give things a look, so we're unlikely to know one way or another any time soon.

--iWindoze

[dencorso]

iWindoze, on Dec 10 2009, 06:31 PM, said:

Speaking of bears, did anyone manaage to save the bearwindows video drivers?

Sure. vbemp9x (direct download). Note that the link I just provided you is bearwindows original russian download site, that remains active, as usual.

[jaclaz]

iWindoze, on Dec 10 2009, 09:31 PM, said:

Speaking of bears, did anyone manaage to save the bearwindows video drivers? His site was one of the many that suffered webrot due to the death of Geocities. The documentation can be retrieved via the internetarchive, but not the drivers themselves.

Well, we are a bit ahead of geocities .
http://www.boot-land...hp?showforum=60
http://www.boot-land...?showtopic=2325
http://bearwindows.b...d.net/vbe9x.htm

Just for your interest, geocities is dead, long live reocities:
http://www.boot-land...?showtopic=9943

It is of course very partial, and in the works, but you can already re-find some sites that cannot be completely recovered from the Wayback Machine.

jaclaz

[Sfor]

Sfor, on Jul 3 2009, 11:58 AM, said:

Also, I've noticed the DOS mode Ethernet driver I've used so far has an importand disadvantage. When the CPU gets hoter, the network speed gets slower. Apparently, the CPU speed goes down, when it gets hoter. Since the DOS mode driver consumes a lot of CPU power, the network speed is affected as well. Funny thing is the problem is visible with the inbound traffic, only. The outbound traffic seems to be working as usual.

I've changed the firmware to 10.06, but I did not do any network speed testing, so far. Surprisingly, I was able to hold over 100kb/s download rate for a quite long time, yesterday. So far, the download speed was always going down with time. I'm suspecting the new firmware is responsible for improved network card performance. Still, there are other factors to be considered as battery/AC and downloading application type. In any case WGET did a nice job, yesterday.

[dencorso]

dencorso, on Dec 10 2009, 08:22 PM, said:

iWindoze, on Dec 10 2009, 06:31 PM, said:

Speaking of bears, did anyone manaage to save the bearwindows video drivers?

Sure. vbemp9x (direct download). Note that the link I just provided you is bearwindows original russian download site, that remains active, as usual.

@iWindoze:
bearwindows has a subforum over at boot-land: bearwindows (as already mentioned by jaclaz), and a new site BearWindows Vault. He's a member here at MSFN, but comes here rarely, and is easier to find at boot-land or by e-mail (findable at his site).
@jaclaz:
Reocities! Indeed! Great news! Thanks for the heads up!

[iWindoze]

I'm glad to see valuable software has not been lost!

Has there been any further success on getting the eeepc (or other netbooks) to run Win9x fully?

--iWindoze

[Rjecina]

iWindoze, on 23 March 2010 - 04:53 PM, said:

I'm glad to see valuable software has not been lost!

Has there been any further success on getting the eeepc (or other netbooks) to run Win9x fully?

--iWindoze

99 % of netbooks created around VIA C7 are having official Windows 98 SE GPU drivers. If we are interested in examples of this notebooks or:

Netbook Emprex BNB-1021 VIA C7-M which is possible to buy on Amazon is created around VIA C7 and chipset VIA CX700M for which it is possible to download all Windows 98 SE drivers (GPU,SATA, RAID) from VIA site.

There is similar situation with HP 2133 Mini-Note PC KS174UT - VIA C7-M (Amazon + VIA drivers) and others VIA C7 netbooks. Sad thing is that VIA C7 is last VIA product with Windows 98 SE drivers

[Sfor]

Well. It appears there is yet another possibility to obtain drivers. WdmStub thread gives hope to use WDM 2k/XP drivers in W98.

I looked in to the audio drivers for Asus EEE PC 900, and it was too much for me, sadly. The driver package consists of the Realtek drivers and Microsoft patch for Windows 2k/XP. The patch is Microsoft UAA Bus Driver for HD Audio.

Apparently the entry in the device manager (PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2668) is the Microsoft UAA Bus. The Realtek Audio drivers are to be installed after the bus driver. I have too little experience with WdmStub to try to port such a complicated driver package.