CPU too new?
 

I have this weird hardware issue. I have an old T4040 Analogue Signature Analyser for repairing electronic equipment. The manufacturer (Polar) is distinctly embarrassed when I mention they made it, and as it's from 1993, they tell me it is "obsolete" (= they don't want to know, middle finger, etc.).

I have 15 years of signatures gathered on a disk, so it is valuable to me. But cpus around the K6, or Athlon stopped running the software. I got a crash on startup. I used run it off a P120, which I recently threw out because I wasn't using it at all :-((.

As soon as that happened, all hell broke loose, and people have been ringing me saying they know I closed in 2006 but is there any chance I'd look at one last thing for them.

Never got it to go with freedos. I can zip up the package and it will load without the machine if it will work. I even have some vintage hard drives and dos-7.0 from windows 98. Has anyone an idea for what I could use now?

Hi,

Why not setup a VM with the necessary kernel for earlier Gnu/Linux of choice(Slackware?). This way you can manage the instrument transparently via the desired configuration(s). Since you are a Slackware user it would be no problem to get earlier version.

There's nothing wrong with older equipment as long it is still viable.

Historic GNU/Linux Slackware® will be of some use.
ftp://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/slackware/ may also provide the version you can use.

I keep some older laptops for just this reason. Got enough boxes & hardware to brew just about any system need(s). I like to experiment! :)

I really think Slackware 8.1 would be the choice starting point. I'm sure you could use 13.1 with a lot of kernel modification/tweaks but why.

I think the 2.4 kernel would be the way to go.
Good luck!

Is this like an octopus or huntron tracker?

I'd guess the thing is somehow tied to the clock. May have to work that in the mix.


Any links to the product?

http://polar.co.uk

It is like the huntron tracker, except better, imho.

Hi,

How is the instrumentation linked to the system?
Just curious!
:hattip:

Onebuck has some good questions. A vm may work. There are some vm's that can fix the halt and maybe some isa bus timer deals.

The way it connects is vital info we'd need.



Yea, I saw a later model of the huntron that did have a complex waveform analysis and was to be used for line work. The military had on for their boards on some ships. Neat way to test boards.

@onebuck: A serial port. It gives a voltage limited, current limited, sine wave to inject into circuit nodes.

@Jefro: Yes, I should have provided that and I apologise. It wants the bottom 640k of memory -that's all. It's 90s software - an exe, a few .ovl files, and a specific directory structure. The pc draws a simple screen and the machine does the clever stuff, receiving commands from a pc and returning data.

VMs are good, imho for modern OSes. People rapidly lose interest when I say DOS.

I did go at this in various ways in the past. This ran on an 8088, iirc. 16 bit stuff. I think even the k6-2 said "Wait a minute - you can't do that!", and barfed on bootup. I feel I need a cpu that will comfortably emulate ancient crap. Is there any of the cheap, crappy, low spec cpus available today that suggests itself? I have a licensed install of (spit) windows 98, and that runs it on the right cpu. On the wrong cpu, we barf.

Most people want better pcs. I need a worse one :-//.

Hi,

Picture is a little clear now.

That is a older piece of equipment. Not saying that it's bad but your best bet is to see if you could get a older PC to work with this piece of instrumentation.
So you don't need a heartbeat for the device? What about some older single board embeds?

You could try DOSBox DOS Emulator but the '.exe' may just barf on you.

Good Luck!
:hattip:

So, the ultimate answer to the ultimate question, in this case of early 90s dos software, i.e.
Is. . . B]NO![[/B]

I'll have to try resurrecting a dinosaur. A high degree of replication is required, because signatures under whatever system I'm running are going to be compared with ones stored in DOS.

Thanks to all who replied and offered their wisdom free gratis.