Run Windows 2000 on a DEC Alpha with a new es40 fork

Somehow, Windows 2000 does not look dated to me. It looks functional and usable, and maybe even somewhat fresh. I never actually used it long-term (during college, started using Linux), so it can't be nostalgic. Anyone else feel the same?

This is pretty cool, it brings back memories. Thanks for posting.

I used to manage Tru64 (Alpha) and OpenVMS (VAX and Alpha). Mostly Oracle DB and whatever they called their App development suite (horrible, horrible software) for a University's ERP system (called Banner) and infrastructure (Multinet on OpenVMS/VAX for DNS, DHCP, mail, etc). After that I moved on to AIX on Power5 for Oracle on HACMP and Veritas Cluster. Such a different world from what we have now.

I have an old AlphaServer ES47 running OpenVMS and Power5 560Q running AIX in my garage

Emulating Alpha on x86_64 is definitely not a thing the Alpha designers foresaw. :-)

From Google, DEC Alpha is a RISC architecture, but I can’t see what es40 is, unless it’s just a fork code name?

did anyone ever run W2k on an ES40 in production?

the only dec hardware I ever touched that ran windows was an AlphaServer 1000, and my assignment was to get it back to running VMS. though, I'll admit now, i goldbricked a bit and spent some time trying out Digital UNIX first.

OK, I imagine that involved quite some challenges. Well done. But why? I fail to see a purpose. Is it just a DOOM runs on my smart toaster kind of thing or something that has production value?

From Google, DEC Alpha is a RISC architecture, but I can’t see what es40 is, unless it’s just a fork code name?

OK, I imagine that involved quite some challenges. Well done. But why? I fail to see a purpose. Is it just a DOOM runs on my smart toaster kind of thing or something that has production value?

The only thing better is server 2003.

This is pretty cool, it brings back memories. Thanks for posting.

I have an old AlphaServer ES47 running OpenVMS and Power5 560Q running AIX in my garage

When I last got the VMS nostalgia bite, I picked up a DS10, on account of the power and space advantages over the ES line, not having a garage and all.

I forget that what I miss was not the system, but the community on the system. Solo VMS is a lonely experience.

Emulating Alpha on x86_64 is definitely not a thing the Alpha designers foresaw. :-)

But does it have FX!32 working to run important x86 software in there?

did anyone ever run W2k on an ES40 in production?

Microsoft never shipped Alpha support for win2k in the release builds, but only the betas and release candidates, so I doubt anyone ran it in "production".

I had to run NT4 on a 4100 in prod at my very first Internet startup job.

We also had a bunch of 1000 and 1000a's, and an AlphaStation running AltaVista firewall all on NT.

An ALR 6x6 (6* Pentium Pros) was faster for Windows than the fully loaded out AS4100 IIRC. Except that the 4100 supported more memory and PCI slots IIRC.

The only thing better is server 2003.

When I last got the VMS nostalgia bite, I picked up a DS10, on account of the power and space advantages over the ES line, not having a garage and all.

I forget that what I miss was not the system, but the community on the system. Solo VMS is a lonely experience.

Microsoft never shipped Alpha support for win2k in the release builds, but only the betas and release candidates, so I doubt anyone ran it in "production".

I had to run NT4 on a 4100 in prod at my very first Internet startup job.

We also had a bunch of 1000 and 1000a's, and an AlphaStation running AltaVista firewall all on NT.

An ALR 6x6 (6* Pentium Pros) was faster for Windows than the fully loaded out AS4100 IIRC. Except that the 4100 supported more memory and PCI slots IIRC.

I never saw Win 2K on Alpha...

I worked at a mostly DEC shop for a while. They had transitioned their main product from VAX to Alpha. Most of the systems ran Digital Unix and VMS, but there was an AlphaServer with NT 4.

My friend Eric, had an unused Alpha server 4100 under his desk...It was used for testing more than a year ago, ( in the early 2000s ). He asked for the install disks, and got a entire box of everything it came with VMS/Ultrix/NT 3.5.. We tried to use raid, but none of the drivers worked. So what... we loaded NT, then Digital UNIX, and finally VMS, but we knew nothing about VMS, so one disk for NT, and one for Digital UNIX. The floating point was outstanding. just wish there was more software for it.

But does it have FX!32 working to run important x86 software in there?

The Turduckin endures.

I never saw Win 2K on Alpha...

I worked at a mostly DEC shop for a while. They had transitioned their main product from VAX to Alpha. Most of the systems ran Digital Unix and VMS, but there was an AlphaServer with NT 4.

The Turduckin endures.

oh, fair. i'd extend the question to include release builds of NT. where i operated alphas, NT ran on commodity x86 hardware, where VMS could not.

As you might know, I'm involved a bit in the OpenVMS community and the Alpha emulation side via AXPBox. AXPBox (github) is a fork of the es40 alpha emulator by Camiel Vanderhoeven (who is now Chief Architect at VSI, the company that makes OpenVMS, for x86 nowdays). There have been many forks of es40 in the past and recently a new one has popped up with some great new features. Like speedups via a JIT compiler, S3 graphics port from MAME and ARC support, resulting in the ability to run Windows 2000 for the DEC Alpha.

Here is a screenshot of Windows 2000 in es40:

win2k

Here is OpenVMS running noticeably faster with JIT enabled:

operator console

There is also OpenVMS graphics support, no need for X11 tunneling anymore:

openvms desktop

To get to a graphical login, start up OpenVMS, log in on the Operator Console and start the graphical system:

@SYS$MANAGER:DECW$STARTUP

Then type logout to get out of the operator console and get the login window:

This will not be a setup guide, I just wanted to inform you of the new fork and the great progress that has been made. I've been trying out the build with massive speedups due to the JIT compiler and it feels way faster than without JIT support, both Windows NT and OpenVMS.

There is a full guide on getting Windows 2000 up and running here, as well as instructions for Tru64 Unix.

The setup is quite involved. es40 is provided as source and a precompiled binary via github. The configuration wizard has been updated for the new features. You need to upgrade the ARC firmware first with the Alpha Systems Firmware Update v7.3(part AG-RCFBX-BS) CD-ROM. You also have to use a different VGA Bios firmware (not the vgabios-0.6a.bin file you would use for AXPBox), this one from 86box, 86c764x1.bin - S3 VGA BIOS.

Upgrading the arc firmware went reasonably fast in the JIT build:

arc upgrade

After the upgrade, type arc on the SRM prompt to boot into the graphical BIOS:

alphabios

Then there will be a memory test, which you can disable in the Advanced CMOS settings screen:

nt setup bios

To actually install Windows 2000, you need to get Windows 2000 RC2 build 2128 from archive.org.

The setup is straightforward. If you've ever installed any Windows version up to I think vista, it's the same blue screen first for partitioning, then boots into a sparse GUI.

It does take quite some time, for me almost 20 minutes.

nt setup

When the installation is finished, you're greeted by a desktop and welcome screen:

nt desktop

Tags: alpha , axpbox , blog , dec , es40 , openvms , pdp , unix , vax , vms , vsi , windows

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Run Windows 2000 on a DEC Alpha with a new es40 fork

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