z386: An Open-Source 80386 Built Around Original Microcode

cbdevidal 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Of course they tested Doom :-D

They might also run Linux kernel 3.7, that supported i386. Gray386linux is still maintained, and runs a patched 3.7 kernel.

https://github.com/marmolak/gray386linux

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nand2mario 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Doom (DOS extender games) is an easier protected mode application as it does not use complex page tables. Linux is much more complex.

	▲	cbdevidal 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I have faith in you!!

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KellyCriterion 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

haha, this was my first thought when I read the headline, because this "classic test" always comes up here :-))

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KellyCriterion 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Question: Are there today any 386 instances running somewhere in the basement to do some productive stuff, maybe processing only some controller data once a day?

I remember the link some month ago where that one small shop ran completely on an old Amiga (?IIRC, not sure, was linked here)

Around 98/99 I was involved in a small IT-management company serving SME around the region, we had a client producing distinct metal objects with a big press; this got feeded once a day with a 5.25 floppy from another machine with production data - and it was still in use while we had already ethernet/USB/3.5 floppies etc. :-D

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geon 11 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

I think there are industrial pcs with a 486-compatible soc.

A ton of industrial equipment are still using win 3.1.

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userbinator an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

There's likely plenty of them still in use in industrial/embedded applications.

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bitwize 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

A few years ago there was a story where the single Amiga that ran an entire US school district's HVAC was replaced with a system costing like 1.5 million dollars, after 30 years of dutiful service.

I can't think of examples offhand but you bet your ass there are donut shops and auto body repair services running 386s to do POS, inventory, and the like. Some of them may be driving terminals off Xenix.

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xp84 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Funny thing about this is that the character-based systems of that era, whether PC-type or host+terminal type, were most of the time so much faster and more responsive than the laggy, over-animated, touchscreen trash they always replace them with in order to get big screens and prettier graphics.

	▲	zozbot234 43 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		The Amiga was not character-based, it ran an accelerated framebuffer (with support for scanning out multiple resolutions and color depths on a single screen).

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UncleOxidant 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Kind of surprised this only takes 18K LUTs. That's a fairly small FPGA these days.

	▲	mycall an hour ago \| parent [-]
		How does it compare to something like VexRisc [0] with respect to its capabilities? I know having x86 support is a metric all by itself. [0] https://github.com/spinalhdl/vexriscv

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mmastrac 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Did the microcode disassembly find any useful backdoors to read microcode without decapping?

	▲	NooneAtAll3 10 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		there are several iterations of 386 and only one was disassembled so there's still a chance
	▲	nand2mario 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Not really. The 386 does not have an interface to read the ROM direclty. Instead, it uses the Built-In Self-Test (BIST) to verify the ROM's contents. It's basically a checksum-like mechanism that verify the integrity of the CROM.