Run Windows 2000 on a DEC Alpha with a new es40 fork

raymii.org131 pointsby jandeboevrie81 comments

Discussion summary

A user discussed running Windows 2000 on a DEC Alpha ES40 with some challenges, questioning its practical purpose. Several commenters shared experiences with Alpha systems and Windows/Unix compatibility, noting limited official support.

What the discussion says

Running Windows 2000 on Alpha was technically possible but not officially supported.
Most Alpha systems ran VMS or Digital Unix, with limited Windows support.
Some users ran NT4 on Alpha in production environments.
Official Alpha support for Windows 2000 was only in betas, not release builds.

“Microsoft never shipped Alpha support for Win2k in release builds.”
— ForOldHack

“Most Alpha systems ran Digital Unix and VMS, not Windows.”
— icedchai

Comments

Hacker News

OK, I imagine that involved quite some challenges. Well done. But why? I fail to see a purpose. Is it just a DOOM runs on my smart toaster kind of thing or something that has production value?

by _blk

never ask why, but instead, why not?

by jaffa2

did anyone ever run W2k on an ES40 in production?

the only dec hardware I ever touched that ran windows was an AlphaServer 1000, and my assignment was to get it back to running VMS. though, I'll admit now, i goldbricked a bit and spent some time trying out Digital UNIX first.

by baron3dl

I never saw Win 2K on Alpha...

I worked at a mostly DEC shop for a while. They had transitioned their main product from VAX to Alpha. Most of the systems ran Digital Unix and VMS, but there was an AlphaServer with NT 4.

by icedchai

I had to run NT4 on a 4100 in prod at my very first Internet startup job.

We also had a bunch of 1000 and 1000a's, and an AlphaStation running AltaVista firewall all on NT.

An ALR 6x6 (6* Pentium Pros) was faster for Windows than the fully loaded out AS4100 IIRC. Except that the 4100 supported more memory and PCI slots IIRC.

by nyrikki

My friend Eric, had an unused Alpha server 4100 under his desk...It was used for testing more than a year ago, ( in the early 2000s ). He asked for the install disks, and got a entire box of everything it came with VMS/Ultrix/NT 3.5.. We tried to use raid, but none of the drivers worked. So what... we loaded NT, then Digital UNIX, and finally VMS, but we knew nothing about VMS, so one disk for NT, and one for Digital UNIX. The floating point was outstanding. just wish there was more software for it.

by ForOldHack

Microsoft never shipped Alpha support for win2k in the release builds, but only the betas and release candidates, so I doubt anyone ran it in "production".

by monocasa

From Google, DEC Alpha is a RISC architecture, but I can’t see what es40 is, unless it’s just a fork code name?

by hsbauauvhabzb

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaServer#Tsunami_family

by mrandish

https://manx-docs.org/collections/antonio/dec/Compaq_AlphaSe...

by justsomehnguy

es40 is an emulator that emulates an AlphaServer ES40 series system.

by classichasclass

This is really cool! There have been many DEC Alpha emulators over the years, but none have been capable of running Windows NT.

by orra

I love how egregiously bad CDE looks compared to Windows. Whoever made that call, dios mio.

by jeberle

Both screenshots of Windows 2000 and OpenVMS are in my opinion the peak UI's.

by ivolimmen

I ran Windows 2000 Beta for years on my DEC Alphastations (4 Miatas and 4 Digital Ultimate Workstations). It ran flawlessly, and so did Office 97 for Alpha.

CD-ROMs for both Windows 2000 Beta and Office 97 (for Alpha systems) came in our monthly TechNet subscription packages.

by jasoneckert

I've heard the new JIT in this emulator can now exceed the speed of a 1.25GHz EV68CB processor ES45 for single core/thread.

by mrandish

Never knew this. Thought the emulator would always slower.

by aghuang

When I was a kid I visited a friend of the family at his workplace, who had a DEC Alpha on his desk.

It was the first time I saw video playing in a window. It blew my little brain. IIRC, you could also resize the window while the video kept playing with no dropped frames.

As a 486SX kid, the DEC Alpha felt like something from the far future to me. What would have been along those lines back then? An SGI workstation?

by consumer451

As a lucky kid, I remember watching in awe, a postage stamp size video from a CD-ROM encyclopedia on my 486SX. Around the same time I got to see some Sun SPARCstations with an insane 32MB of RAM!

by sillywalk

This is personally mildly disturbing because I remember beta-testing Windows 2000 on DEC Alpha back in late 1999, and eventually running Windows 2000 and BeOS on a dual PIII-450 machine (with 256 MB of RAM, SCSI HDs, and eventually an ATI Rage Fury graphics card… amazing back then and archaic nowadays).

by qubex

Emulating Alpha on x86_64 is definitely not a thing the Alpha designers foresaw. :-)

by allenrb

But does it have FX!32 working to run important x86 software in there?

by saltcured

This put a smile on my face. I have a random, vivid memory from college of being in a university IT cave trying and failing to install Windows 2000 RC3 on a DEC Alphastation 600. My friends and I were scratching our heads when somebody figured out that RC2 (the build referenced in this blog post) was the last Windows build to support Alpha.

If I remember correctly we installed Red Hat Linux ~5-6.0 on the DEC and used it for various shenanigans. In retrospect it would have been fun to get Tru64 running on it instead…

by crmd

> failing to install Windows 2000 RC3 on a DEC Alphastation 600. My friends and I were scratching our heads when somebody figured out that RC2 (the build referenced in this blog post) was the last Windows build to support Alpha.

If you had seen the RC2 disks, it would have been obvious. RC2 had different disks for Intel and Alpha, RC3 only had Intel disk(s). NT4 had all archs on the same disk, so it would have made some sense to be confused.

by toast0

AFAICR, Linux was far easier to run stuff on by that point. Playing with different variants of Unix was certainly fun though! I remember being blown away by an Irix+OpenGL demo on “deprecated hardware” that a friend had access to in the late 90s. After growing up with a Borland compiler in dos and programming graphics in the most naive of manners possible, seeing accelerated graphics that outmoded any xscreensaver on my fancy 200Mhz Pentium Linux box opened my eyes a little more!

by imoverclocked

This is pretty cool, it brings back memories. Thanks for posting.

I used to manage Tru64 (Alpha) and OpenVMS (VAX and Alpha). Mostly Oracle DB and whatever they called their App development suite (horrible, horrible software) for a University's ERP system (called Banner) and infrastructure (Multinet on OpenVMS/VAX for DNS, DHCP, mail, etc). After that I moved on to AIX on Power5 for Oracle on HACMP and Veritas Cluster. Such a different world from what we have now.

I have an old AlphaServer ES47 running OpenVMS and Power5 560Q running AIX in my garage

by andrewjf

I also have an ES47 (running Linux)! Would you send me an email to my username at gmail? I've been working on a remote management tool for the ES47 that allows controlling the fan speeds that you might be interested in.

by mattst88

When I last got the VMS nostalgia bite, I picked up a DS10, on account of the power and space advantages over the ES line, not having a garage and all.

I forget that what I miss was not the system, but the community on the system. Solo VMS is a lonely experience.

by baron3dl

Somehow, Windows 2000 does not look dated to me. It looks functional and usable, and maybe even somewhat fresh. I never actually used it long-term (during college, started using Linux), so it can't be nostalgic. Anyone else feel the same?

by bartvk

You can fix Windows7/8/10/11 with Retrobar

by bobmcnamara

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Hacker News
OK, I imagine that involved quite some challenges. Well done. But why? I fail to see a purpose. Is it just a DOOM runs on my smart toaster kind of thing or something that has production value?
by _blk
never ask why, but instead, why not?
by jaffa2
did anyone ever run W2k on an ES40 in production?
the only dec hardware I ever touched that ran windows was an AlphaServer 1000, and my assignment was to get it back to running VMS. though, I'll admit now, i goldbricked a bit and spent some time trying out Digital UNIX first.
by baron3dl
I never saw Win 2K on Alpha...
I worked at a mostly DEC shop for a while. They had transitioned their main product from VAX to Alpha. Most of the systems ran Digital Unix and VMS, but there was an AlphaServer with NT 4.
by icedchai
I had to run NT4 on a 4100 in prod at my very first Internet startup job.
We also had a bunch of 1000 and 1000a's, and an AlphaStation running AltaVista firewall all on NT.
An ALR 6x6 (6* Pentium Pros) was faster for Windows than the fully loaded out AS4100 IIRC. Except that the 4100 supported more memory and PCI slots IIRC.
by nyrikki
My friend Eric, had an unused Alpha server 4100 under his desk...It was used for testing more than a year ago, ( in the early 2000s ). He asked for the install disks, and got a entire box of everything it came with VMS/Ultrix/NT 3.5.. We tried to use raid, but none of the drivers worked. So what... we loaded NT, then Digital UNIX, and finally VMS, but we knew nothing about VMS, so one disk for NT, and one for Digital UNIX. The floating point was outstanding. just wish there was more software for it.
by ForOldHack
Microsoft never shipped Alpha support for win2k in the release builds, but only the betas and release candidates, so I doubt anyone ran it in "production".
by monocasa
From Google, DEC Alpha is a RISC architecture, but I can’t see what es40 is, unless it’s just a fork code name?
by hsbauauvhabzb
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaServer#Tsunami_family
by mrandish
https://manx-docs.org/collections/antonio/dec/Compaq_AlphaSe...
by justsomehnguy
es40 is an emulator that emulates an AlphaServer ES40 series system.
by classichasclass
This is really cool! There have been many DEC Alpha emulators over the years, but none have been capable of running Windows NT.
by orra
I love how egregiously bad CDE looks compared to Windows. Whoever made that call, dios mio.
by jeberle
Both screenshots of Windows 2000 and OpenVMS are in my opinion the peak UI's.
by ivolimmen
I ran Windows 2000 Beta for years on my DEC Alphastations (4 Miatas and 4 Digital Ultimate Workstations). It ran flawlessly, and so did Office 97 for Alpha.
CD-ROMs for both Windows 2000 Beta and Office 97 (for Alpha systems) came in our monthly TechNet subscription packages.
by jasoneckert
I've heard the new JIT in this emulator can now exceed the speed of a 1.25GHz EV68CB processor ES45 for single core/thread.
by mrandish
Never knew this. Thought the emulator would always slower.
by aghuang
When I was a kid I visited a friend of the family at his workplace, who had a DEC Alpha on his desk.
It was the first time I saw video playing in a window. It blew my little brain. IIRC, you could also resize the window while the video kept playing with no dropped frames.
As a 486SX kid, the DEC Alpha felt like something from the far future to me. What would have been along those lines back then? An SGI workstation?
by consumer451
As a lucky kid, I remember watching in awe, a postage stamp size video from a CD-ROM encyclopedia on my 486SX. Around the same time I got to see some Sun SPARCstations with an insane 32MB of RAM!
by sillywalk
This is personally mildly disturbing because I remember beta-testing Windows 2000 on DEC Alpha back in late 1999, and eventually running Windows 2000 and BeOS on a dual PIII-450 machine (with 256 MB of RAM, SCSI HDs, and eventually an ATI Rage Fury graphics card… amazing back then and archaic nowadays).
by qubex
Emulating Alpha on x86_64 is definitely not a thing the Alpha designers foresaw. :-)
by allenrb
But does it have FX!32 working to run important x86 software in there?
by saltcured
This put a smile on my face. I have a random, vivid memory from college of being in a university IT cave trying and failing to install Windows 2000 RC3 on a DEC Alphastation 600. My friends and I were scratching our heads when somebody figured out that RC2 (the build referenced in this blog post) was the last Windows build to support Alpha.
If I remember correctly we installed Red Hat Linux ~5-6.0 on the DEC and used it for various shenanigans. In retrospect it would have been fun to get Tru64 running on it instead…
by crmd
> failing to install Windows 2000 RC3 on a DEC Alphastation 600. My friends and I were scratching our heads when somebody figured out that RC2 (the build referenced in this blog post) was the last Windows build to support Alpha.
If you had seen the RC2 disks, it would have been obvious. RC2 had different disks for Intel and Alpha, RC3 only had Intel disk(s). NT4 had all archs on the same disk, so it would have made some sense to be confused.
by toast0
AFAICR, Linux was far easier to run stuff on by that point. Playing with different variants of Unix was certainly fun though! I remember being blown away by an Irix+OpenGL demo on “deprecated hardware” that a friend had access to in the late 90s. After growing up with a Borland compiler in dos and programming graphics in the most naive of manners possible, seeing accelerated graphics that outmoded any xscreensaver on my fancy 200Mhz Pentium Linux box opened my eyes a little more!
by imoverclocked
This is pretty cool, it brings back memories. Thanks for posting.
I used to manage Tru64 (Alpha) and OpenVMS (VAX and Alpha). Mostly Oracle DB and whatever they called their App development suite (horrible, horrible software) for a University's ERP system (called Banner) and infrastructure (Multinet on OpenVMS/VAX for DNS, DHCP, mail, etc). After that I moved on to AIX on Power5 for Oracle on HACMP and Veritas Cluster. Such a different world from what we have now.
I have an old AlphaServer ES47 running OpenVMS and Power5 560Q running AIX in my garage
by andrewjf
I also have an ES47 (running Linux)! Would you send me an email to my username at gmail? I've been working on a remote management tool for the ES47 that allows controlling the fan speeds that you might be interested in.
by mattst88
When I last got the VMS nostalgia bite, I picked up a DS10, on account of the power and space advantages over the ES line, not having a garage and all.
I forget that what I miss was not the system, but the community on the system. Solo VMS is a lonely experience.
by baron3dl
Somehow, Windows 2000 does not look dated to me. It looks functional and usable, and maybe even somewhat fresh. I never actually used it long-term (during college, started using Linux), so it can't be nostalgic. Anyone else feel the same?
by bartvk
You can fix Windows7/8/10/11 with Retrobar
by bobmcnamara