d8b Forum

This is a bit off topic, since it's about misappropriating the d8b CPU for a different purpose, but has anyone on here every successfully installed Windows (any flavor) on their d8b CPU? If so, which version of Windows, and was it straight forward or did you have to do any tricks to get it to work?

I kept a few really old ISA Soundcards that I used a lot back in the days. An Ensoniq Soundscape Elite, and a Terratec EWS64 (but that one's mostly a sampler, so I might be able to convert the sample banks and load them into Kontakt or something). I'd like to resurrect some old songs, and would like to get some of the original sounds back, that I used back then. That's why I'd like to Sample some of the sounds off of these cards... then pull them back out, and resume the regular d8b mixer operation. The only computer with ISA slots that I have, is the d8b CPU (Newer/Celeron 300 MHz)... that's why I'm even messing around with this.

I opened the case, connected a CD-ROM Drive to the second IDE controller, and for now, unplugged the Mackie OS Drive, and connected another empty drive (capped at 32GB) to the primary IDE controller instead.

I booted from the Win98SE boot floppy, formatted the added HD (fdisk... then Format C: - no problems with that), and started the Win98SE Setup from CD. It copies the files needed for Setup to the HD, then switches to the graphical Windows 98 Setup screen, where it normally starts do the actual installation and shows the progress bar, but it freezes immediately - the progress bar doesn't even show up. Not even the first thing on the list "Preparing to run Windows 98 Setup" gets highlighted like it normally does. It keeps saying "Estimated time remaining: 30-60 minutes", no matter how long I wait.

Suspecting an incompatibility, I pulled all existing cards out, and disabled everything non-essential in the BIOS, but still can't get past this point. I even copied the files from the Win98SE CD to a harddrive and tried again. Same problem.

So, back to the original question: Has anyone actually installed Windows on their d8b CPU and got it running? If so, what did you do to make it work? Is Win98SE maybe too new? Maybe Win98 first edition? Or even Win95?

One thing I might still try, is to connect a different Power Supply to the board, since the Mackie one is a bit non-standard. But I don't think Windows Setup "knows" anything about this... power should be power from that perspective.

I can also still try other PCI or AGP video cards (I have some)... but before I go all out with crazy troubleshooting, I thought it would be good to hear if anyone had success with it...?

Thanks in advance for your tips and suggestions!

Answering my own question (in case it's interesting to anyone else)... I couldn't wait, so I tried another PCI Video card (ATI Radeon from 2001) and got past that screen. The Win98 installation is running now...

I guess this 'might' mean, that the Video card used in the d8b, might not be compatible with Win 98. I tried the one from my second d8b unit as well, which also had the same problem, but I think both those cards are identical anyway.

So far, so good. Installation is in progress

...don't mind me while I'm having a conversation with myself

In case anyone else ever wants to try running Windows 98 SE on their d8b CPU, I figured I'd share my findings here as I work on this (all of this is on the "newer" Motherboard, the one that comes with a Celeron 300A processor):

1. Windows 98 SE Setup did NOT work (froze) with the video card that came with the d8b (apparently, a Cirrus Logic 5434 PCI). With that card in the system, I was not able to install Windows 98 SE.

2. I had to use a different video card to get Windows installed. I used an ATI Radeon 7000 MAC32N PCI I had lying around.

3. Once Windows is installed, I removed the "other" card, and put the Cirrus Logic video card back in. It then got recognized by Windows on boot, and worked fine in Windows (albeit, at a maximum of 256 colors at 1024x768 resolution).

4. This motherboard actually has a USB connector on the motherboard, that isn't used in the Mackie OS. I had an old ASUS USB wiring harness lying around, that turns this into 2 USB ports that can be mounted to one of the card slot openings in the back. Obviously, the USB port won't work in Mackie OS, as there is no driver support for it (at least I assume that - I haven't tried yet).

5. I tried using a USB thumb drive with this in Win98SE, but this only worked after downloading and installing some generic 3rd party drivers for thumb drives. Can't remember the URL right now, but it was easy to find. After that, this made it a lot easier to get files moved from my main computer to this one... like drivers for the ISA soundcards because of which I'm doing all of this.

6. My ISA Soundcard(s) work fine in the d8b CPU under Windows 98, and I'm having a ball with this right now (Ensoniq Soundscape Elite / Terratec EWS64S). But of course you have to remove the network and/or MIDI I/O card that comes with the d8b, since there are only two ISA slots on this board. I can even have both my ISA soundcards installed at the same time after making sure the IRQs get assigned in a way where they don't conflict with something essential (some of this requires setting jumpers on the cards).

7. I have yet to try if the MIDI I/O card (Opcode PC MIDI) that comes with the d8b works in Windows or not - I think it should be supported by Windows directly, since this is something like the mother of all MIDI I/O cards from the early days. Trying this was not a priority for me yet, since both soundcards I installed do MIDI I/O as well (over the joystick port). What I know, though, is that I can't have the d8b MIDI card installed, while one of the other soundcards is also in the system, because of IRQ and Memory Address conflicts. I messed with the jumper settings on the MIDI I/O card a bit, but eventually gave up, since I don't really need the MIDI I/O card for what I'm doing.

8. I also haven't tried if the d8b Network card works in Windows, but expect that it would. This one also conflicted with an IRQ used by the soundcard I had in there, so it didn't make sense for me at this point.

What I couldn't try yet and won't be able to this weekend, is if I could leave one or both of the soundcards in the system, and make the d8b dual-boot between Mackie OS and Windows 98 SE. If this works, then I might sacrifice the d8b MIDI I/O and network connection, for the sake of being able to access my old soundcard setup from 20 years ago any time I want.

I typically only use the d8b as a straight forward mixer for monitoring of some old synths, and use a switch to then operate it with a ProBox for DAW control anyway. For this, I don't typically need to sync it to timecode, and also rarely need the network card (if I really need to move files and don't want to use the floppy, I could boot it into Windows and use the USB ports to move files... and I don't have two working CPUs to cascade two d8b's via the network cards... so, I won't miss it).

I'll write another update once I got a chance to try to make this into a dual-boot system. I used to use the "OS/2 Warp" Bootloader back in the Win98/ME/NT days to boot different Operating Systems without having to change settings in the BIOS. Hopefully this will work for this, too... Oh... and that's another thing I have yet to try... if Windows can deal with the BIOS settings the d8b needs. I reset the BIOS during troubleshooting at some point, so I don't know right now. I'll find out when I experiment with dual-booting this thing...

...maybe my experience helps someone else who was thinking to install Windows on the d8b brain... but I strongly suspect I'm the only one crazy enough to want to use 20 year old Windows ISA soundcards with inferior sound quality in this time and age But maybe there's someone with another use for a Windows installation on one of these things

Hi,
I just wanted to thank you for all your hard work on this and say well done! I am wondering if this would work on an HDR and if so if there would be any way to keep the USB functionality when booting from the Mackie OS. At any rate, I appreciate what you've done and your willingness to share it with us.

Thanks and have a blessed day,
Mike W.

One day I was bored, and tried to install a linux distro on one of my HDR’s (easy enough to try with a CF card for a harddisk.
Anyways, I had some trouble getting it to boot fully, and ended up postponing it for another rainy day.
Anyway, I don’t see any reason it shouldn’t be able to work with W98, although it’s quite possible you will have to edit a few bios settings between boots.

Sorry that it took me so long to follow up. I had to put this project aside for a little while, being busy with other stuff (building a Hackintosh with Thunderbolt for my new Apollo interface).

I just wrapped up the Win98SE on d8b CPU project, though, and it turned out better than expected.

Short version, I can dual-boot Mackie OS and Windows 98 SE with my two old Soundcards installed, without having to make any BIOS changes between booting, other than hiding the drive I don't want to boot from. (Haven't tried yet if the OS/2 boot manager would work).

What I lost is the MIDI and Network cards the d8b comes with, since I needed those ISA slots on the mainboard. Not everything on the installed soundcards (Ensoniq Soundscape Elite & Terratec EWS64S) is working, though, since they both want to use some of the same IRQ's... and being limited to 16 IRQs total in Win 98, they are kind of sparse to begin with.

Luckily, what's conflicting and not working, is only the joystick port on one of the cards (Ensoniq) and the "Codec" Sound Chip on the Terratec card (it's secondary low quality FM sound chip). So, everything I want to use still works, since I can send MIDI to the Ensoniq card, that comes in from the Terratec game port, using an app within Windows.

I did have to disable the PS/2 mouse port in Windows 98, for the separate card that comes with the Mackie CPU to connect the mouse to, since this one would have conflicted with something major on one of the soundcards (forgot what it was). This means that I have to move the mouse from PS/2 to USB for Win 98 use (I used a USB to PS/2 adapter anyway), or have two mice connected at all times.

@Old School - about the USB port being usable in Mackie OS... this would mean that someone would have to write a USB driver for the Mackie OS. So, that's unlikely to happen. That's not trivial. I did try if USB happens to work in Mackie OS, and it does not - as expected. From what I understand, the motherboard in the Mackie HDR is the same as in the d8b brain, so theoretically it should work to install Win98SE in the same way I did. But they might have used other cards, or introduced other changes (e.g. BIOS version), that might cause problems. So, nothing is guaranteed. USB almost certainly won't work in Mackie OS, though, no matter if doing this on a d8b brain or on the HDR.

So, the CPU is back in the rack now - the mixer works as a mixer (or with the ProBox), and when I feel like it, I can switch boot drives in the BIOS, boot into Windows 98 SE and use my 20+ year old sound cards, and access some of my go-to sounds from back then. Totally awesome! My d8b just keeps on giving

I just saw Gary Stone's post about Eric Russ (R.I.P. - never had the pleasure to interact with him), that also mentioned the possibility to use a USB keyboard by adding a USB breakout cable to the connector on the d8b motherboard.

For reference:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2002

This made me think that I should try again, if my USB port that was added in the same way, would also work with a USB keyboard within Mackie OS. It does not.

I tried a mouse connected to USB first. Booting after making the connection while off. No success.

I shut down, tried connecting a USB keyboard to USB instead (mouse back to the PS/2 port). No success.

I then unplugged my old AT Keyboard (5-pin DIN, like MIDI), only having the USB keyboard connected, and booted again. Still, no success.

Long story short, it's awesome that Gary Stone somehow got this working, but it didn't work for me. I have access to USB when booting the d8b brain to Windows 98 SE from a different harddrive... but don't get access to USB from Mackie OS - even though the USB breakout cable for the card-slot opening that is connected to the port on the motherboard, is present for this, too, of course.

Your milage may vary, I guess...

Oh, the USB keyboard I used was an Apple Pro Keyboard (0x020b). That's the one with a clear plastic frame and white keys. Not sure if the type of USB keyboard would make a difference, though).

A usb keyboard should work - I can confirm that. There is a bios setting that needs to be set befor it works though.
Also, it is possible that not all usb keybords work.