XP On 8-MHz Pentium With 20 MB RAM 410
swehack writes "The guys over at winhistory.de managed to get their Windows XP Professional running on a very minimal box: an Intel Pentium clocked down to 8 MHz with 20 MB of RAM. (The installer won't work with less than 64 MB, but after installing you can remove memory.) The link has plenty of pictures of their progress in achieving this dubious milestone. They deserve a Golden Hourglass award for 'extreme waste of time.' What obscure hardware configurations have you managed to get Windows running on?"
Not too long ago... (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't think we ever heard back from them.
That Slashdot Bias, Again (Score:2, Interesting)
It's a pretty big achievement, I think, to get WinXP to run on such a crappy setup, even more so because it IS Windows, which we're used to seeing require much more in terms of resources than a comparable Linux package. Maybe someone will figure out how to get WinXP running on their crappy but not-as-crappy box by reading this article.
Heh... Not bad... (Score:4, Interesting)
and still "run". I had this old narfy 386sx-16 "laptop" with 16Mb of RAM and 120Mb of HD. I installed
it with compression out of the gate and the thing just went in there. It wasn't happy with me, but
it was usable for very small values of "usable" and it ran stuff like Delphi if you were patient for
very large values of "patient" as it swap-thrashed itself to death doing what I asked of it.
It still worked. I was impressed. Wasn't USEFUL, mind.
This falls under the same category.
Har. (Score:3, Interesting)
In 8MB.
It worked...
--
BMO
Re:Let's try a different challenge... (Score:3, Interesting)
They constantly upgrade their hardware (as soon as warrenty expires on the hardeware, they start selling it, auction style, for the book value of $1.00). Yet they still run windows 3.11. Eventhough that Microsoft told them that they will no longer support it. They simply think that it works fine for filling spreadsheets, writting Word Perfect documents, and exchange files on line via FTP, and exchange information via a well-put-together Oracle-core database.
Their tech support team knows the ins and outs of the system, they feel comfortable working with it, the top execs of the company are not lured by all the sales idiots that march in their offices on querterly basis to sell them another Misrosoft system. They are just working fine, and making good money, no headaches, no new viruses, no graphics,, just a f!@#$% spreadsheet and an ftp, with a good DB. subject closed. If you show them any Microsoft certs for job credentials in your interview, you almost hear them say "good for you, close the door behind you, NEXT".
BTW, until today, most of the airlines in Europe are still using OS2 for their end terminal client at the airports. They just need a 'thing to run the f!@#$ database', no more.
Re:Let's try a different challenge... (Score:4, Interesting)
And I'm curious as to which Windows 3.11 system it is that can run Oracle? Or do they run a newer version of Windows (or heaven forbid, gasp, Unix) for it? In which case, what happened to all that "glitz and glam" that they so vehemently shunned?
I'm not buying it.
Re:Back in the day... (Score:3, Interesting)
It installed, but left less than 100MB left on the partition. After the final reboot, it sucked up the last bit of disk space for the swapfile, and it started configuring itself... About an hour later, it seemed to be finished, and I tried to log in. Up came a big window for setting up Active Directory. For the next several hours, the computer did nothing but swap to and from the woefully undersized pagefile, completely unresponsive to my vain attempts at input. I let it sit overnight, and finally gave up the next morning and wiped the partition.
Didn't occur to me at the time, but all I needed was a little more disk space for the pagefile, and then it would have at least booted properly, even if not been very fun to use. As it was, I didn't touch Win2k again until I had upgraded to a 500MHz K6-2 and 256MB RAM.
For what it's worth, I don't seem to have actually learned my lesson yet. I'm currently running Vista w/ Aero on a cheapo Compaq Celeron laptop with 512MB RAM and i945 graphics, loaded up with IIS7, SQL2k5, SUA, an X server, and so on. But hey, it _looks_ pretty!
D-Link DFL-700 router (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I already did that (Score:3, Interesting)
Some of these files, can't remember which, I think they came from the win98 installer, making them smaller. It can't run DOS apps, unfortunately.
If anyone can make Windows 3.1 *with* DOS support fit onto a 1.44 MB floppy, I'd like to see it.
-uso.
Re:Hmph... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Hmph... (Score:5, Interesting)
(Microsoft Great Plains version 9 if anyone cares)
dosbox does that (Score:4, Interesting)
You can run win 3.1 on dosbox. I imagine there's a 64 bit port in Debian and elsewhere. With a fast enough machine, it should be about as quick as it ever was. It's kind of slow on a 1GHz class 32bit cpu.
Windows Server 2003 on a-synchronous cpus (Score:3, Interesting)
You read that right.
One of the Athlon MP 2400s in my box died, and I didn't have a spare. I did have a spare Athlon XP-m 2400, so I decided to try it. Unfortunately mobile cpus boot at their lowest speed, so my server had one 2GHz cpu and one 600MHz cpu in MP...
It worked perfectly, except for programs that tried to use cpu cycle counters to measure time. Eg. I started my Counter-Strike server and it was confused as to whether it had been on for 1 minute or 2 hours.
Oddball install circa 1990 (Score:3, Interesting)
Rewind to 1990. Install Windows 3.0 on your Banyan VINES file server. Then prepare a boot floppy with DOS, the Banyan drivers and nothing else. Remove the hard drive from a 386SX with 4MB RAM, boot said machine with the floppy and start Windows from the file server.
In this configuration, Windows will happily page to the floppy, that being the only local storage available.
Mac community beat them to it (Score:3, Interesting)
These people are way behind the curve. The Mac community did this years ago [mactalk.com.au], running OS X 10.3 on an old 25 MHz Mac.
Because of the software emulation required to run the PowerPC code on a 68k machine, the person who did the experiment estimated that booting up should take about 7 days. :-)
Re:My Hardware (Score:3, Interesting)
I've changed RAM, sound cards, several video cards, monitors, power supplies, countless peripherals, etc. This machine is on 24 hours a day, I use it as a work machine (writing/compiling code,) photo editor, movie editor, 3D modeler, file server, media center (hooked up to the TV,) etc. I can usually run the machine without a reboot for weeks at a time, and then I only reboot because of a patch - and usually because of stupid-ass McAfee virus scan needing the machine to reboot, but I'm looking at my virus scan options right now. I never blue screen with this machine - at least not since I got rid of my NVidia video card 3 years ago.
Oh, and its XP Home, not Pro.
The key to not having to reinstall is to not be a pussy. You have to maintain your PC just like you would a Linux (or any other) machine. Remove old nasty drivers, keep drivers up to date. Clean up the registry. Make sure you run a firewall (or have a router at least). Run anti-virus software. Be careful about what you run/install.
So please, you and everyone like you should stop whining about Windows needing to be re-installed all the time. It just shows you know little about computers or maintaining them. Maybe you should call your nerd cousin to help you out next time.
Re:My Hardware (Score:4, Interesting)
I had a local dialup account. He had some old computer parts:
1. Low end VGA monitor
2. VGA card capable of 16 colors at 640x480
3. 2 Megs of Ram
4. 20 Meg Hard Drive
5. 1200 baud modem
6. 1.2m floppy dirve
7. A 386-SX motherboard with a lowend 16hmz CPU
On this sweet box, I was able to install a striped down DOS 6.22, a bare install of Windows 3.11, trumpet winsock (1.x series I belive), and the Opera Web Browser (3.x) series.
I had to practically perform a seance to get MEMMAKER to give the MGA adapter memory over for use to bump the DOS 640k limit.
It was painful, but I was able to get a graphic dial up connection at 1200 baud, 16 color 640x480 resolution and show my friend this brave new world of the internet.
Of course this system operated with the rock soild reliability we have all come to know and trust from Mircosoft.
The sad thing is. It probably took less time to build this box AND install all the software than it takes to do a VISTA install nowdays.
Re:Imagine..... (Score:2, Interesting)
Uh, no. Last time I was there and putting together a PC for my fiancee, it was XP on a AMD PC with something like a 2GHz chip in it. Cost about $500.
What is it with Americans thinking that other countries can't advance at the same rate as they do? Or even, Ghod forsake, advance faster because other countries don't need to make the mistakes that America has made. (Actually, the "Ghod forsake" bit is probably part of America' problem - too many people waiting for the man in the nightie in the sky to come and solve their problems for them.) In western Siberia where my wife came from, they've gone (in the towns) from under 10% penetration of dial-up to about 10% penetration of broadband in the time that it takes the UK government to decide whether or not to issue a residence permit.