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Project Timewarp - an OS timeline

PostPosted: Thu Dec 08, 2011 3:08 pm
by Carcenomy
OK so I'm nearly at the point where I can go ahead and do this so I figured I'd let you guys in on it just in case anyone has spares that could help! :)

So after watching a video online with some other IT guys of a scottish bloke installing Windows 1.0 all the way through to Windows 7 under VMware, we decided that it's more than possible to one-up this guy's video. Do much the same sort of thing... but use real, physical hardware. Half the challenge of upgrading an operating system is the hardware changeover, and this especially becomes an issue when you start talking about modern gear where there's new instructions, more reliance on chipset components etc. It should be most interesting!

So the battle plans are to use every major Microsoft consumer level operating system that's been available. This means versions such as Windows NT and Windows 2000 will be excluded. At this stage we have most of the hardware available to try. So we're going for:

MS-DOS up to 3.30, Windows 1.0 - Commodore PC10-III w/ Miniscribe 20MB MFM drive
MSDOS up to 5.0, Windows 2.0 - Machine undecided, either a 286 or 386. Could use the PC10 at a pinch I guess.
MS-DOS up to 6.22, Windows 3.x - 386. Have a couple in mind that might work, I think one's even one of those nice old AMD Am386DX40s...
Windows 95 Retail - 486DX4-100 or Pentium. Have either option available.
Windows 98 - AMD K6-2.
Windows 98 SE (if upgrade can be obtained) - Intel Pentium II
Windows Millennium Edition - Intel Pentium III
Windows XP - AMD AthlonXP most likely
Windows Vista - either AMD Athlon64X2 or Intel Core 2 Duo
Windows 7 - Likely remain on Vista hardware.

The only major component I'm short on is a graphics card for the PC10. Sure it has inbuilt CGA, but it really needs some form of VGA adapter so I can keep 15-pin D-sub as the connection routine throughout. Once that's all stabilized we'll be shooting the whole thing over a weekend with a few boxes of Beck's beer, a camcorder and a VGA image recorder. Should be some entertainment involved! :)

Re: Project Timewarp - an OS timeline

PostPosted: Fri Dec 09, 2011 11:43 am
by tezza
Carcenomy wrote:The only major component I'm short on is a graphics card for the PC10. Sure it has inbuilt CGA, but it really needs some form of VGA adapter so I can keep 15-pin D-sub as the connection routine throughout. Once that's all stabilized we'll be shooting the whole thing over a weekend with a few boxes of Beck's beer, a camcorder and a VGA image recorder. Should be some entertainment involved! :)


Sounds interesting. So you'll need one of those 8-bit VGA cards right? Not so common, I believe.

Re: Project Timewarp - an OS timeline

PostPosted: Fri Dec 09, 2011 1:22 pm
by Carcenomy
Yeah didn't think so. Finding a decent VGA frame grabber looks like a nightmare too - the closest thing we can find that would work correctly is 300USD. I don't spend that much money on computer gear very often, and I don't intend on starting now ;)

We'll come up with something though. If anyone has any suggestions fire them this way.