ArcaOS - Retro Gaming Machine

[Mathias]

Hi Ivan,

> That sounds like a rather nice machine

It's a ten year old power saver with a rather slowish CPU. - And the onboard graphics chip was said to be HD ready, but the reality is even 720p had performance issues at times.
Also browsing the internet can be quite a test of patience. - Writing an article in a Minecraft forum with that machine took ages, as the forum website had a javascript running, that was completely killing the CPU. - ArcaOS, same as Linux, same as Windows 7.
So.. I would rather not use that anymore for daily use, but for retro projects, it's perfect. : )


> I am not surprised about the ASMedia SATA card working because those chips are used by the Ryzen chipset

I see! oo: - Interesting. - This card must be atleast 5 years old, maybe even older, and still this chipset family is being used by top-notch AMD boards?

I am too an AMD person, in theory, but some years ago I had to switch *some* machines to Intel, as I needed 64 GB RAM in two machines. But AMD boards could only do 32 GB at max, back then.
Today this is a complete other story, and I might get AMD machines again. The cost2usage ratio (for me) is and always was simply better @ AMD.


> which means that I have to use a VIA USB 2 PCIe1 card for any USB needs.

Hmm.. the day will come, where these cards are getting rare. But as I heard, development is ongoing for USB3 drivers, I have confidence, OS/2 will make the jump on USB3 and also UEFI.


> The fact you made an image after you got it installed is good.

Of course. Returning the machine from the con means, somebody could have changed, installed, infected something, so I need the image to roll back the HDD to where it was before: Clean ArcaOS install with all the games and icons in place.
Also if something goes wrong at the retro con, and I need to reinstall ArcaOS.. I can roll out the image, and the machine is back on display in 20 minutes.
Or afterwards, the machine can be used for other things, allowing me to always get ArcaOS on it again, when needed.
So.. creating images is always a good idea. : ))


> I had to do that to bypass problems with the ArcaOS installer on all the Ryzen boards I have.

Oh!! So the installer does not (yet?) work with Ryzen boards?
So you installed the OS on another machine and imaged it to the Ryzen machine, which worked out in the end? - Another cewl feature of OS/2: You can swich the hardware underneath the OS without breaking anything. Just replacing drivers in config.sys...
Try that with Windows... :p

[xynixme]

Report for the 13th Retro gaming night @ Leipzig, Germany on 11th of May 2019!!

I have been there with an ArcaOS machine that I had prepared only for this con, loaded with DOS, Win3.x and OS/2 games.

The crowd was NOT interested in the OS itself, just the games. Well yes, surely no owners of their own retro machines.. just playing games that they were playing when they were young, but apparently they don`t play these games anymore, as most of them told me. o.O

Sure. A more commercial target would be people finding or remembering any old DOS game, whom want to give that a try again with e.g. virtual hardware. Or $10 hardware. Then DOSBox (for Windows) or a mute OS/2 system isn't the best answer to attract those users.

[ivan]

Hi Mathias,

A good machine as far as I'm concerned is one that does what it is setup to do without problems.  So your box is a little old but it did the job very successfully apparently.  I have an Acer Aspire T180 from wayback that was my main home OS/2 machine until the end of last year when my home built Ryzen box took over.

I see that Intel are having more problems with their processors again - hyperthreading this time, so I'm happy to have all AMD based machines.
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/05/14/intel_sidechannel_vulnerability/

Yes, the VIA USB 2 cards are now a 'hunt for on ebay' item and some of the USB 2 cards, while providing USB 2 are actually based on USB 3.0 chipsets.  Hopefully the USB 3.0 for OS/2 and ArcaOS will arrive soon as we were told about it 2 years ago.

Memory for the Ryzen appears to be 64GB although I only have my boxes fitted with 8 GB.
 

[Mathias]

André, sure thing; But I doubt regular users would be able to bring the machine to its limits with DOS games. :> - Therefore, I suppose a crazy and much more modern PC case would do the job already, attracting people in between all the old Amigas and retro things.  - No need to spend hundreds of EUR just to run retro applications, where some already run way too fast on the Intel Atom.

The aim is to attract people first, and then make them sit down and play around with the stuff installed.

Sound.. yes.. that would then complete the user's retro experience, as soon as they have started a game. - But that's nothing that I could do much about. I have to wait for the devs to come around with a solution.


Ivan, it's crazy what bugs and potential security holes are found by some individuals and laboratories. - All this renders whole computer fleets unsafe all of sudden, and what was state of the art a moment ago, is now unsafe trash from one to the other second. It's true that AMD has not yet been impacted by such kind of bugs, but why didn't these "boffins" come around with that stuff some years ago, when these CPUs had been released? - Not sure, but I think that is somehwat on purpose, so we all have to buy new hardware all the time. - Lucky AMD users for the moment, but I suppose when these scientists would check AMD CPUs, they might find one or another similar bug too..

It's unfortunate, but today everything is unsafe, as long as it has not been proven to be safe.. but then, the next day somebody comes out of nowhere, telling you "all your hardware is unsafe and needs to be replaced".
Same with Volkswagen and co: First they tell you all is excellent, and the other day they take the car out of order, as you produce much much more toxic output as you are allowed to. - Who pays for this? Of course not the industry, but the customer needs to buy new stuff to comply with regulations. (Atleast german customers need to. I have heard VW is sentenced to give buyers their money back in the US, which IS RIGHT, just why not here in DE??) Why does industry never pay for their own faults?
I would say that Intel needs to hand me my money back, as I need to buy new CPUs now.. since the old ones are unsafe in any aspect.. rendering them almost useless.. if I care for data security.

Mathias