Hi

I thought I would have a go at running my OS on a computer I bought for
it (and had it running on) a while ago. So I got it out... it's not
working.

Trying to figure out what is wrong.. I tried different RAM, different
Graphics, different monitors.. at one point it started to boot, but only
once, and I have no idea what I did to make that happen.

It looks as though it works, it just shows nothing on the screen.. the
lights are on, the ethernet card flashes.

I need a speaker so I can hear those magic beeps that tell you what it's problem is.. but I don't have one.

So, today I have not succeded in running my OS on bare hardware - but I
have succeded in making quiet a mess, and I'm to tired to tidy up now :(

Maybe it's dead, it is fairly old...

Andrew


--- envy/0.1-6dee535
* Origin: Quinn - Random Things - bbs.quinnos.com:2323 (21:1/999)

On 08 Sep 2025 at 05:28a, apam pondered and said...

I thought I would have a go at running my OS on a computer I bought for
it (and had it running on) a while ago. So I got it out... it's not working.

Trying to figure out what is wrong.. I tried different RAM, different Graphics, different monitors.. at one point it started to boot, but only once, and I have no idea what I did to make that happen.

It looks as though it works, it just shows nothing on the screen.. the lights are on, the ethernet card flashes.

Can you hook up a UART? Throwing some debug prints out of the serial
port is usually a pretty good place to start.

You may want to try resetting all BIOS settings, which you can usually
do with a jumper. It sounds a bit like there's some corruption in the
system configuration.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

Re: Re: Computer Broken
By: tenser to apam on Wed Sep 10 2025 06:48 am

Can you hook up a UART? Throwing some debug prints out of the serial port is usually a pretty good place to start.

Unfortunatly not, there's no serial port, and I don't have anything to plug in that would give it a serial port.

You may want to try resetting all BIOS settings, which you can usually do with a jumper. It sounds a bit like there's some corruption in the system configuration.

I didn't try looking for a jumper, but I did remove the CMOS battery and replace it.

I did find a second computer and it did the same thing (which you would think would narrow it down..) however I removed some of the memory and it started working. At least I got grub to load - my OS didn't but that could be a software problem.

Anyway, I've packed it up for now and will continue with QEMU. Interestingly (though off topic) Virtual box no longer works - it wont even boot grub, I guess it no longer supports setting vesa modes?

Oh well QEMU works, and last time I checked VMWare works too, so that will have to do for now until I can motivate myself to attempt to fix things.

I have gotten my telnet program to work properly with Synchronet (it required a bit more telnet protocol stuff) so I can connect to Constructive Chaos and have it detect ansi and telnet and work correctly. I've also gotten TinyCC to work, so I can enter programs and compile them and the output runs.

It would be nice to have it work on a real PC again, but it's a 32bit OS with no usb stack - so finding a computer with a PS/2 mouse and Keyboard port is tricky - sometimes that USB compatibility works, sometimes it doesn't, but I guess what I really need is a USB stack - so maybe that will be my next project.

Andrew
--- SBBSecho 3.28-Win32
* Origin: -=[conchaos.synchro.net | ConstructiveChaos BBS]=- (21:4/141)

Re: Re: Computer Broken
By: apam to tenser on Tue Sep 09 2025 09:11 pm

Oh well QEMU works, and last time I checked VMWare works too, so that will have to do for now until I can motivate myself to attempt to fix things.

I found a computer it runs on... an old acer aspire one laptop... it runs, but not with a very good resolution and no ethernet, but it runs :D

Andrew
--- SBBSecho 3.28-Win32
* Origin: -=[conchaos.synchro.net | ConstructiveChaos BBS]=- (21:4/141)

On 09 Sep 2025 at 09:11p, apam pondered and said...

Re: Re: Computer Broken
By: tenser to apam on Wed Sep 10 2025 06:48 am

Can you hook up a UART? Throwing some debug prints out of the serial is usually a pretty good place to start.

Unfortunatly not, there's no serial port, and I don't have anything to plug in that would give it a serial port.

Oh, that's unfortunate; meaning there's no UART header on the
mainboard? Sometimes, one is lined out but runs at TTL levels,
but if there's truly no interface, then obviously it won't
help. :-(

I didn't try looking for a jumper, but I did remove the CMOS battery and replace it.

I did find a second computer and it did the same thing (which you would think would narrow it down..) however I removed some of the memory and
it started working. At least I got grub to load - my OS didn't but that could be a software problem.

Huh, that's very strange. Presumably, just loading the firmware
(BIOS or UEFI or whatever) should be totally independent of your
OS, as your OS hasn't loaded yet. This sounds very much like a
hardware problem, but that similar symptoms are present on two
separate machines is very weird.

Once GRUB has started handing off to your OS, I'd think that
further problems would be software.

Anyway, I've packed it up for now and will continue with QEMU. Interestingly (though off topic) Virtual box no longer works - it wont even boot grub, I guess it no longer supports setting vesa modes?

Oh well QEMU works, and last time I checked VMWare works too, so that
will have to do for now until I can motivate myself to attempt to fix things.

I have gotten my telnet program to work properly with Synchronet (it required a bit more telnet protocol stuff) so I can connect to Constructive Chaos and have it detect ansi and telnet and work
correctly. I've also gotten TinyCC to work, so I can enter programs and compile them and the output runs.

Hey, that's all pretty cool! Dunno about the VirtualBox stuff,
but good luck and have fun playing around with it!

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

(oops, hit send too early.)

On 09 Sep 2025 at 09:11p, apam pondered and said...

It would be nice to have it work on a real PC again, but it's a 32bit OS with no usb stack - so finding a computer with a PS/2 mouse and Keyboard port is tricky - sometimes that USB compatibility works, sometimes it doesn't, but I guess what I really need is a USB stack - so maybe that will be my next project.

Yeah, usually the PS/2 emulation stuff for USB devices runs
in SMM handlers, using firmware provided by the mainboard vendor.
It's all super janky, and better to just write a proper USB
driver/stack. It's not an awesome standard, though; the level
of complexity is out of control.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

Re: Re: Computer Broken
By: tenser to apam on Thu Sep 11 2025 01:42 am

Unfortunatly not, there's no serial port, and I don't have anything to
plug in that would give it a serial port.

Oh, that's unfortunate; meaning there's no UART header on the mainboard? Sometimes, one is lined out but runs at TTL levels, but if there's truly no interface, then obviously it won't help. :-(

Oh. There might be A UART on the mainboard, and I do have a USB serial TTL cable from when i was building z80 computers.

I will look into it later, I had to pack things away so don't have space to have them out (the computers) at present.

Once GRUB has started handing off to your OS, I'd think that further problems would be software.

Yeah, on the second computer grub handed off to my OS, but it was just a black screen - not sure why but I am sure the serial port would give info on that (the console outputs to serial as well in my OS) that computer does have a serial port, but i don't have a null modem cable (at present) so i might give that a go at some point.

I'm going away for a week tomorrow, going to investigate USB stack and porting to x86_64 - both seem like pretty monumental tasks to me lol, so which ever one looks the easiest I will have a crack at first.

Hey, that's all pretty cool! Dunno about the VirtualBox stuff, but good luck and have fun playing around with it!

Thanks, I'm pretty happy with it.. I discovered some errors in it earlier this year and it's been running so much better since I fixed them, and I've been suprised at how well the networking has been going (I had a webserver on it for weeks, and with all the portscanners and such, it didn't crash at all)

Anyway, I will have fun, oh I used your pointer vectors in it too that you contributed to magicka bbs - I hope that's ok..

Andrew
--- SBBSecho 3.28-Win32
* Origin: -=[conchaos.synchro.net | ConstructiveChaos BBS]=- (21:4/141)

apam wrote to tenser <=-

It would be nice to have it work on a real PC again, but it's a 32bit
OS with no usb stack - so finding a computer with a PS/2 mouse and Keyboard port is tricky - sometimes that USB compatibility works, sometimes it doesn't, but I guess what I really need is a USB stack -
so maybe that will be my next project.

My local junk shop has an old, serial Logitech mouse - the wedgy one
with the 3 buttons. I'll see if it's still there. :)



--- MultiMail/Win v0.52
* Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)

Re: Re: Computer Broken
By: poindexter FORTRAN to apam on Wed Sep 10 2025 06:38 pm

My local junk shop has an old, serial Logitech mouse - the wedgy one with the 3 buttons. I'll see if it's still there. :)

Hah! Cool. Except I don't have a serial mouse driver either lol

Andrew
--- SBBSecho 3.28-Win32
* Origin: -=[conchaos.synchro.net | ConstructiveChaos BBS]=- (21:4/141)

On 10 Sep 2025 at 06:56p, apam pondered and said...

[snip]
I'm going away for a week tomorrow, going to investigate USB stack and porting to x86_64 - both seem like pretty monumental tasks to me lol, so which ever one looks the easiest I will have a crack at first.

Cool. USB is hard; for x86_64, it depends: to enter 64-bit
long mode, you have to set up virtual memory paging and enable
the MMU; if you're already doing that for 32-bit, it's not so
bad: but if you're using x86-segmentation (which I think you
are?) it's a lot more challenging because a) most of x86
segmentation is ignored in long mode, and b) you have to switch
to paged virtual memory (with at least 4 level paging).

Personally, I'd rather set up a kernel for x86_64 than implement
USB, particularly if I have to do HID devices.

Hey, that's all pretty cool! Dunno about the VirtualBox stuff, but g luck and have fun playing around with it!

Thanks, I'm pretty happy with it.. I discovered some errors in it
earlier this year and it's been running so much better since I fixed
them, and I've been suprised at how well the networking has been going
(I had a webserver on it for weeks, and with all the portscanners and such, it didn't crash at all)

Anyway, I will have fun, oh I used your pointer vectors in it too that
you contributed to magicka bbs - I hope that's ok..

Sure! Have at it.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

Re: Re: Computer Broken
By: tenser to apam on Fri Sep 12 2025 11:03 am

Cool. USB is hard; for x86_64, it depends: to enter 64-bit long mode, you have to set up virtual memory paging and enable the MMU; if you're already doing that for 32-bit, it's not so bad: but if you're using x86-segmentation (which I think you are?) it's a lot more challenging because a) most of x86 segmentation is ignored in long mode, and b) you have to switch to paged virtual memory (with at least 4 level paging).

no i do have paging with the mmu. I'll look at it. I did go down another rabbit holr though, adding fat support via grafting the fatfs driver in, its _almost_ working, but having some minor issue that is proving to be difficult :)

my goal for adding fat support was to be able to use usb keys which would be awesome if i had a usb stack, and able to use limine boot loader which i hear is good (and part of a youtube video about porting to x86_64) plus having to have an OS that can write minix v3 filesystems to prepare my disk images is a bit tricky (debian does still, but most linux distros ship kernels with it disabled)

Andrew
--- SBBSecho 3.28-Win32
* Origin: -=[conchaos.synchro.net | ConstructiveChaos BBS]=- (21:4/141)

apam wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

Hah! Cool. Except I don't have a serial mouse driver either lol

I would love to have one of those swoopy Logitech mice, that was sort of
peak Logitech design, around the late '90s. Don't know if I could
tolerate a mechanical mouse again - I spent most of the '90s cleaning
mouse gerb out of the workings...



... Dear Esteemed Colleagues (And Steve);
--- MultiMail/Win v0.52
* Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)

Re: Re: Computer Broken
By: poindexter FORTRAN to apam on Fri Sep 12 2025 07:01:04

Hi, pF.

Don't know if I could
tolerate a mechanical mouse again - I spent most of the '90s cleaning
mouse gerb out of the workings...

I remember when optical mice (without the special 'graph paper' reflective mat) started to become mainstream. "What a pointless change", I thought at the time.

Now in the 2020s I get to use a ball mouse (or "mouse", as they used to be called) again and... Man, are they crap!

I spent an embarrassingly long time thinking my ball mouse was broken - actually it was too begin with, an ex school mouse which has a Phillips screw to stop kids pinching the ball and so some genius had tried to pry it out with a pencil and made the circular hole no longer circular. Anyway, I continued heating and straightening and sanding that long after I probably needed to because I forgot the golden rule: ball mice need a mouse mat!

Well, I don't have any of them but the cardboard back of a writing pad works a lot better than my shiny desktop.

BobW
--- SBBSecho 3.29-Linux
* Origin: >>> Magnum BBS <<< - magnumbbs.net (21:1/205)

On 12 Sep 2025 at 05:51a, apam pondered and said...

Re: Re: Computer Broken
By: tenser to apam on Fri Sep 12 2025 11:03 am

Cool. USB is hard; for x86_64, it depends: to enter 64-bit long mode have to set up virtual memory paging and enable the MMU; if you're al doing that for 32-bit, it's not so bad: but if you're using x86-segmentation (which I think you are?) it's a lot more challenging because a) most of x86 segmentation is ignored in long mode, and b) y have to switch to paged virtual memory (with at least 4 level paging)

no i do have paging with the mmu. I'll look at it.

Ah, cool. I stand corrected!

I did go down another
rabbit holr though, adding fat support via grafting the fatfs driver in, its _almost_ working, but having some minor issue that is proving to be difficult :)

Oh nice. What's the problem that you hit? Possibly you've already
fixed it by now, but I'm curious.

my goal for adding fat support was to be able to use usb keys which
would be awesome if i had a usb stack, and able to use limine boot
loader which i hear is good (and part of a youtube video about porting
to x86_64) plus having to have an OS that can write minix v3 filesystems to prepare my disk images is a bit tricky (debian does still, but most linux distros ship kernels with it disabled)

It strikes me that you could probably still use limine regardless
of whether the OS used a different file system format: you'd just
prepare an image with a copy of the kernel in a small FAT
partition, but the system would mostly ignore it once running.

I presume to prepare an image, you attach a file to a pseudo disk
device via a loopback driver and initialize and mount a Minix FS
on it, then just copy files to that. You could, however, create
a filesystem directly in a disk file and copy files into that; it
would be a fair bit of work, as you'd have to write code to write
the minix3 file structures into that file, versus letting the kernel
do that for you, but it would be very portable. Of course, using
FAT would be much simpler.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

Oh nice. What's the problem that you hit? Possibly you've already
fixed it by now, but I'm curious.

It was actually an issue with my memcmp function, i was comparing an
extra byte.. no idea how that one snuck by for so long!

It's all working now :D

It strikes me that you could probably still use limine regardless
of whether the OS used a different file system format: you'd just
prepare an image with a copy of the kernel in a small FAT
partition, but the system would mostly ignore it once running.

Yes, I did try that first, but it didn't work - I assumed I had an error loading from the second partition, but I didn't dig in and went the fat
route instead, I should try again! Part of the reason was Limine passes
the frame buffer info a bit differently to grub (not incorrectly, just a
way I hadn't realized could be done, so thats fixed now too)

I presume to prepare an image, you attach a file to a pseudo disk
device via a loopback driver and initialize and mount a Minix FS
on it, then just copy files to that. You could, however, create

Yep! that's exactly what I am doing

a filesystem directly in a disk file and copy files into that; it
would be a fair bit of work, as you'd have to write code to write
the minix3 file structures into that file, versus letting the kernel
do that for you, but it would be very portable. Of course, using
FAT would be much simpler.

Yeah, it's possible, but yeah, a lot of work, and filesystems are
something I struggle with a bit. I did think instead I could write a
minix3 FUSE driver, then it might port to use with FUSE on other systems.

Fat is also much better, my minix 3 driver only supports 1024 block size,
which appears to make filesystems restricted to small sizes. I'm not sure
if thats an error on my part, as when I was writing it I understood that
they could only be 1024 block size, but I think that was incorrect.

Now that the FAT driver is working, I've been able to port all my scripts
to use FreeBSD, which is great, means I'm not stuck on Linux if I don't
want to be :)

Andrew


--- envy/0.1-6dee535
* Origin: Quinn - Random Things - bbs.quinnos.com:2323 (21:3/197)