8 Jun
2013
8 Jun
'13
4:19 a.m.
On Sat, 8 Jun 2013, Ethan Dicks wrote:
Going through stuff on the shelf and I've run
across a couple of
486-based fully-integrated LCD/touchscreen machines. One is a SCAN
Corporation SCANtouch Model 3000, the other is a Planar Systems box.
Similarities include limited memory (2x 72-pin SIMM sockets on the
SCANtouch or 4x 30-pin SIMM sockets on the Planar, both with
"double-sided SIMM" support, so 64MB or 32MB max respectively), one ISA
socket (no PCI), onboard NE2000, serial, parallel, 2.5" PATA disk...
these systems will run MS-DOS, of course, and Win95 (the touch screen on
the SCANtouch is old enough that it apparently doesn't work with Win98
mouse drivers, according to forum posts I dug up). I really don't care
about running DOS or Win95 on a touchscreen/LCD machine, and the
practical alternative is some flavor of Linux or UNIX. What I'm having
difficulty digging up is when the break from low-mem/pre-Pentium systems
happened and what distros are on which side of the divide. RedHat 7/8/9
require a Pentium and 64MB minimum from what I can research/remember.
The last time I ran Linux on a 486, it was Yggdrasil (and before that,
some early form of Slackware on a 386).
So... anyone have a "go-to" Linux distro for
sticking on a 486? I know
RedHat 5.2 will work - that's what's on my PS/2-E (w/486SLC and 12MB of
free mem I was recently discussing). Any other choices?
This was part of my gripe in the other thread. We just don't have a full
fledged or embedded Linux solution that is currently maintained that will
work well with these type of embedded boards.
RedHat 5.2 was the last RedHat Linux distribution I used on 486 based
boards and IIRC, 5.2 was the last of the pre-GNOME RedHat releases (this
was around the time the Pentium II came out and the ATX form factor came
to market). I later moved all the 486 based stuff I maintained that used
Linux to Debian 2.1 (slink) and 2.2 (potato). I would think that most any
Debian version from 3.0 (woody) up through 5.0 (lenny) would work
moderately well with a 486 based application, as long as you aren't trying
to use something like GNOME or KDE under X11.
A current Debian distribution such as 6.0 (squeeze) or 7.0 (wheezy) should
work on a 486, at least in console mode (I've not even considered trying
to run current X11 on one) but you'll need as much memory as you can
install plus lots of hard drive and a swap partition. Installation would
also likely be very slow, and you'd want to deselect everything in
'tasksel' during installation (unless you have at least 2GB of hard drive
space, but even then it will install a lot of useless stuff) and manually
install whatever packages you need after letting it install the base OS.
Your board with 4 30-pin SIMM sockets likely tops out at 16MB. AFAIK, no
one ever made 8MB 30-pin SIMMs, although at one time there were some 16MB
SIMMs available at great expense (~$400.00/ea or ~$25/megabyte). 99% of
the boards out there did not support 30-pin SIMMs larger than 4MB though.
I do have a few EISA boards that could (8 sockets, 128MB max), but I never
was able to put my hands on any 16MB 60ns 30-pin SIMMs in matched sets of
4.
I've dug up full specs on the Scantouch 3000
innards - PCM-4890
integrated CPU board, NE2000 (Realtek RTL8019) Ethernet, C&T 65545 video
chipset w/800x600 max LCD resolution, Sharp LM10V33 VGA (640x480) 10.4"
color LCD, VIA VT82C496G chipset, , PC104 sockets... so I have little
concern about getting *something* working with it.
The PCM-4890 was made by Advantech and is a pretty good board. I'm
familiar with them and at one time used lots of them. It is a 5.25" sized
"Biscuit PC" form factor. Mostly due to the lack of a decent Linux
distribution to use with them, I swapped out all the remaining 5.25"
Biscuit PC 486 boards I was maintaining with Socket 7 boards about 8-10
years ago. A quick Google search even turns up a pdf file of the user
guide: ftp://ftp.emacinc.com/Archive/m-4890.pdf
I would suggest avoiding "EDO" memory with these and stick with a pair of
32MB 72-pin FPM Parity type SIMMs. EDO support with many of these types of
boards is problematic and was more of an afterthought and marketing ploy.
Samsung FPM SIMMs in particular work very, very well with these types of
boards.
Getting 10-year-old RedHat working on a Pentium-class
machine isn't a
real challenge, but it's been long enough since I've really fiddled with
486s that specific memories of system configuration are getting a bit
fuzzy. At one time, over 15 years ago, it was a daily thing knowing the
ins and outs of what the 486 could and couldn't do, before CPUs and
memory and clock speeds took off like a rocket, and when 4MB was
ordinary, but more than 16MB was uncomfortably expensive for hobby gear.
We just don't have a currently maintained Linux distribution out there
that is intended for these types of applications. I would personally love
to have a distribution that was tailored for low memory embedded-server
applications, but something that could also (optionally) support a GUI
would be very useful too. I still maintain lots of Socket 7 and Socket 370
stuff, and despite the "Just go buy a new PC" responses from many of the
current Linux distribution maintainers, it is cases such as this where you
can't just replace something with a cheap off-the-shelf consumer "PC".