Unless there's an ARM version of Win9x, there's no way you can run Win9x using the Raspberry Pi boards. x86 binaries are not compatible with ARM binaries.

The can make Quake3 run on the Raspberry Pi because the source code is available for Quake 3 if I'm not mistaken. This allows people to compile the program for the ARM architecture. Unless Microsoft has released the source code for Win9x, there's no way you can make your own ARM based Win9x.

what the heck u talking about... read all my post please, I am saying Intel/AMD could have copy this and make a x86 USB PC, which is much more useful than ARM ones.

Sorry for misreading your post.

There's no way Intel/AMD could do the same thing as the Raspberry Pi. The main reason people likes the Raspberry Pi is the price. If the people at Raspberry could have made the hardware out of x86 parts at the same price, they would have done so already.

If you don't mind about the price, you could go for one of these-EPIA Pico-ITX Series. It is x86 compatible and it is small. No idea on the price though. There's a few other boards at that site that may interest you if you are looking for small sized boards.

Can you get drivers for modern hardware for the Win9x platform?

This post has been edited by Eventless: Mar 26 2012, 05:54 PM

x86 and ARM are the same thing just diff instruction set/architecture. If this thing is possible for ARM, it will also be possible for Intel/AMD. Its just whether they want to do it or not and sell it in mass quantity. my say for running win9x is a simple example, wouldnt it be great to have a USB PC that can be a printer? Driver can be rewritten.

Coca-cola is a billion dollar business selling cheap drinks
Usb thumb drive business are also big, they are selling around RM20-150 as well.
b4 thailand HDD maker are selling millions of HDD @ RM100-200 too.
So are Optical drive maker/DRAMsm makers/keyboard/mouse business.

Electronics can be very cheap.

it is a big business, just whether they want to do or not. they also once tot embedded cpu/smartphone/tablet is a waste of time, look what apple/Samsung prove them wrong?

ARM does work the same way as Intel/AMD. They only design the processors but they don't build the actual hardware. The low cost model works because anyone can build ARM based hardware with the necessary license from ARM. This makes it possible for high volume production. All your examples deals with high volume production.

Only Intel/AMD can build Intel/AMD cpu and no one else. The number of factories that Intel and AMD can own and run are limited. Why would they focus on a low profit item when they can produce high profit items with their limited production capabilities? They also can't license out their technology as this will cut into their profit margin and may reveal their hardware secrets to others.

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Added on March 26, 2012, 6:24 pmIf software is not an issue, why would using the ARM architecture be a problem?

This post has been edited by Eventless: Mar 26 2012, 06:24 PM

u see thats why they Intel/AMD has been thinking for smartphones/embedded system back ,now they(intel) are trying to join back in for what they have missed to fight what apple/ARM/Samsung has been sucessful in. My question is why not check out other unexplored area rather than fighting Apple/Samsung/ARM? Raspberry pi had proves that market does want a cheap micro computer.

computer chip in Phones are simple, it was use to think a low profit zone.

besides, Intel probably have enough volume to feed the entire industry. Intel/AMD supplied like 90% of desktop/server/notebook chips, u called that low volume?

besides, low powered chips are small, many times smaller, a single wafer can produce much more SoC than a big Sandy bridge.

It is not about the cost ARM can achieve it is the WILL that Intel/AMD willing to try this market or not.

Software is not an issue, it can be rewritten for drivers, but it is the x86 legacy softwares. x86 got huge library of softwares. If Intel/AMD is smart they would use this as their advantages. the same could have said for Microsoft on their windows.

Why focus on legacy software? You can't get support for old legacy software. You probably can't even buy them even if you wanted to. Copyright does not expire that quickly so it is not possible to wait for the copyright to expire. It is more or less a dead end.

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Added on March 27, 2012, 1:09 amARM type or similar embedded type processors are used in phones, tablets, handheld video games, network routers, portable mp3 players and so on while Intel/AMD CPUs are used primarily in computers. Volume wise, it is safe to say embedded type devices outnumber computers.

Based on this -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture, 2.45 billion units of ARMS processors were shipped in 2006. Does AMD and Intel produce anywhere close to that number of units?

This post has been edited by Eventless: Mar 27 2012, 01:09 AM

didnt I told u, the production of ARM cpu is base on wafer, each wafer can produce much more ARM cpu than a large sandy bridge CPU. ARM cpu simple, the die size is small, each wafer can make more of it. Intel/AMD can do the same on x86 it is no diff.
You need to take a read about the die size b4 start talking about how awesome ARM volume is. If Intel have production issue, they wouldnt waste their time playing with Medfield CPU trying to complete with ARM.

if old legacy software arent important, why Microsoft make such a big fuss about trying to keep windows 7 able to run old software? Besides it is not about being able to buy them or not, but being able to run it, many of us still have old legal copy software, it will be wonderful that I still can use it on my new hardware.

plenty of simple free software nowadays can run on embedded system. So it is not just having legacy software, but also covered the others.

I dont see how x86 being a disadvantages to ARM when they got huge library of softwares backing it.

This post has been edited by Boldnut: Mar 27 2012, 08:32 AM

The problem with legacy systems is that it is a shrinking market. Most licenses are tied to machines, not boxed copies. You also need legacy OS which you can't get new license for. Without support you are just opening yourself up to potential security problem.

For open software, you can just recompile it for other processor architecture. There's no advantage there. They don't really fall under legacy software since you can support it yourself.

there are box version of OSes, there old softwares that are still useful, these softwares are abandon by the developer, it is far less likely they will recompile for ARM. free softwares are not limited to OPEN softwares, there are many not open ones too.

if I could run any old games/software that I use to own on my USB device, wouldn't it be great? if there is an x86 smartphone, I'll ditch ARM cpu any time.

Even if there was an x86 smartphone, you wouldn't be able to run those software. There's no guarantee that you can install the x86 OS on that device and make full use of the hardware. Abandoned software can be a source of security vulnerabilities as well.

Isn't the Intel Medfield based on the Atom processor so there's already a solution to your problem in the future? Just don't expect it to cost the same as a Raspberry Pi.

Since this has nothing to do with the Raspberry Pi and there's nothing that the people at Raspberry can do about it, it probably better to have separate thread to discuss this.

its the same concept to Raspberry Pi, just x86 are more useful given the legacy they have.

If there's such a high demand for legacy support, why don't the supporters get together and design their own hardware?

How exactly is the Raspberry Pi the same concept? It is meant to be a teaching tool. Any other uses is just a bonus.

it is a reaching tool, but they take it out and it sold out easily showed that market want cheap PCs.

Intel Atom processors alone is enough to send the price of the rpi equivalent board to be of higher cost. x86 is of CISC and ARM is of RISC architecture. ARM is good for very specific platform optimization, making it very suitable for embedded devices that is aimed at specific purpose. x86 architecture on the hand is aimed at general processing due to more memory related features, making it not suitable for RPI boards due to costs, as it requires extra overhead to perform the same features that ARM architecture can do, with more resources.

Also, x86 architecture is a home-grown designed by Intel, which AMD adopted too. While Intel is investing heavily and still struggling to bring its Atom chips to be on par with ARM processors in the embedded market, their cost and performance are still behind ARM processors.

If you are a designer given the choices, a matured processor designed that's designed for small scale embedded devices in mind and a processor that's improving by leaps and bounds, but still largely inefficient in terms of calculations per watt and performance, which would you choose? If ARM was not that good, Microsoft wouldnt include ARM as a platform you compile against.

Each architecture has its pro and cons, like a digital camera and a video camera. You will not be seeing much x86 processors in handphones/embedded devices, and you will not be seeing any ARMs at all in NASA space stations.

I'm glad RPI designers adopted ARM as its architecture. Its hell trying to optimize the performance for x86 platform, in a very memory constraint environment.

This post has been edited by SnoWFisH: Mar 27 2012, 03:27 PM

It hasn't really shown anything. It has only been out less than a month. There's no telling if the demand would remain.

I have a suspicion that most of the Raspberry Pi boards are going to end up as HTPCs rather than low cost computers.

This post has been edited by Eventless: Mar 27 2012, 04:13 PM

That's my intention of purchasing RPI. plug it into the usb port of the TV, and output it to the TV as a portable media player.

Or, a media transcoder for streaming purpose.

I think there's already an XBMC build for RPI.

This post has been edited by SnoWFisH: Mar 27 2012, 06:03 PM

Too bad it can only decode H264 using hardware acceleration. The display hardware is supposed to be able to decode other formats using the hardware but it is not enabled as only the license for H264 was provided with Raspberry Pi. If you can obtain the licenses for the other formats, it would make quite a media player. At least youtube is running on H264 so that maybe a bit of good news.

A normal USB 2.0 port which can provide 500ma may not be sufficient to power a Model B since that needs a 700ma power source in order to work based on the faq from the Raspberry site. You may need an alternative power supply for that.

Is there enough processing power to do transcoding for streaming using the ARM processor?

For streaming it should be enough. I need to get the board first to be able to to test it out...July....

actually it is kind of pointless even if you can get Windows 8 (or any windows) running on it... I could imagine there will be very few applications can be run on Windows 8 (ARM) version, unless you can get the software author to compile ARM compatible binaries.

There is an open source implementation of Windows called ReactOS it is the closest hope (but still highly unpractical) for anyone who wish to run windows on Raspberry Pi.

This post has been edited by I<3LYN: Apr 2 2012, 05:06 AM