Choosing a PC for QNX

QNX Newsgroups (Archives) comp.os.qnx
1

QSSL doesn’t go far enough in recomending a PC platform for use with
QNX. They will tell me, off the record, that they don’t like certain
manufacturer’s PC’s, but they won’t tell me who they do like.

What do you all recomend? How do you choose a PC platform when you go
spec a new system that you are going to build? Anyone working in
Process Control, how do you find an industrial PC that works well with
QNX?

Our last project, we had trouble with hard drives that were to big, and
graphics cards that were too new. How do I avoid that when I go out and
buy PC’s next year, to run QNX?

Scott

2

If you don’t get as many replies as you expect to this message, it may be
because many of us are awaiting the same answers as we haven’t yet found
“reasonable” solutions for hardware selection.

Up to this point I locate a piece of hardware, then search comp.os.qnx using
dejanews.com or remarq.com for comments on the piece. If this pulls nothing
then I post a query as to other’s experience with it.

Seeing the item in QNX’s supported list is only enough to indicate that you
should check further, not a guarantee that iot will work with the latest CD.
I’ve found SCSI and LAN cards in the list that didn’t work without latest
Beta drivers, and some that still don’t work. (It would be nice if the list
indicated what CD/Beta supported the device).

Understanding QNX’s position is also easy. If I can’t buy the same hardware
each production run because the SCSI/LAN/etc manufacturer has come out with
a newer device and obsoleted the one that worked, then I can’t expect QNX to
keep up with them either. They’d go broke trying to get a sample of each
item. And they don’t have the clout to tell the hardware manufacturer that
they shouldn’t do it that way.

<<< Sometimes I wonder is MS isn’t driving the manufacturers to newer items
that aren’t backwards compatible just to keep the other Op/sys companies off
balance. Many designers would happily make their devices backwards
compatible, at least for the minimum feature set >>>

Paul

J. Scott Franko <jsfranko@switch.com> wrote in message
news:3978BA5A.A4FBAEF2@switch.com…

QSSL doesn’t go far enough in recomending a PC platform for use with
QNX. They will tell me, off the record, that they don’t like certain
manufacturer’s PC’s, but they won’t tell me who they do like.

What do you all recomend? How do you choose a PC platform when you go
spec a new system that you are going to build? Anyone working in
Process Control, how do you find an industrial PC that works well with
QNX?

Our last project, we had trouble with hard drives that were to big, and
graphics cards that were too new. How do I avoid that when I go out and
buy PC’s next year, to run QNX?

Scott

3

Agreed. Consider yourself lucky. Usually the customer has a corporate
standard and they just tell you what you will use – Compaq, HP, etc. –
whether it works or not. You then proceed to disable all the onboard
“features” and go out and buy the most vanilla parts you can to stuff
inside.

Things To Avoid:

  1. Any box with a picture of some hideous creature holding a BFG
  2. Anything claiming to have “Advanced Management Capabilities”
  3. CPU’s that need 7 CD’s to configure the BIOS
  4. If it says “Optimized for Windows!” on the box.
  5. The motherboard requires a custom cable to connect a serial device
  6. CPU requires more than 16 fans to operate.
  7. Translucent cases.
    :sunglasses: Has a front shaped like a sports car.


    “Paul Russell” <paul@jenosys.com> wrote in message
    news:8laegu$frt$1@inn.qnx.com…

If you don’t get as many replies as you expect to this message, it may be
because many of us are awaiting the same answers as we haven’t yet found
“reasonable” solutions for hardware selection.

Up to this point I locate a piece of hardware, then search comp.os.qnx
using
dejanews.com or remarq.com for comments on the piece. If this pulls
nothing
then I post a query as to other’s experience with it.

Seeing the item in QNX’s supported list is only enough to indicate that
you
should check further, not a guarantee that iot will work with the latest
CD.
I’ve found SCSI and LAN cards in the list that didn’t work without latest
Beta drivers, and some that still don’t work. (It would be nice if the
list
indicated what CD/Beta supported the device).

Understanding QNX’s position is also easy. If I can’t buy the same
hardware
each production run because the SCSI/LAN/etc manufacturer has come out
with
a newer device and obsoleted the one that worked, then I can’t expect QNX
to
keep up with them either. They’d go broke trying to get a sample of each
item. And they don’t have the clout to tell the hardware manufacturer that
they shouldn’t do it that way.

Sometimes I wonder is MS isn’t driving the manufacturers to newer
items
that aren’t backwards compatible just to keep the other Op/sys companies
off
balance. Many designers would happily make their devices backwards
compatible, at least for the minimum feature set

Paul

J. Scott Franko <> jsfranko@switch.com> > wrote in message
news:> 3978BA5A.A4FBAEF2@switch.com> …
QSSL doesn’t go far enough in recomending a PC platform for use with
QNX. They will tell me, off the record, that they don’t like certain
manufacturer’s PC’s, but they won’t tell me who they do like.

What do you all recomend? How do you choose a PC platform when you go
spec a new system that you are going to build? Anyone working in
Process Control, how do you find an industrial PC that works well with
QNX?

Our last project, we had trouble with hard drives that were to big, and
graphics cards that were too new. How do I avoid that when I go out and
buy PC’s next year, to run QNX?

Scott

4

J. Scott Franko wrote in message <3978BA5A.A4FBAEF2@switch.com>…

QSSL doesn’t go far enough in recomending a PC platform for use with
QNX. They will tell me, off the record, that they don’t like certain
manufacturer’s PC’s, but they won’t tell me who they do like.

What do you all recomend? How do you choose a PC platform when you go
spec a new system that you are going to build? Anyone working in
Process Control, how do you find an industrial PC that works well with
QNX?

Our last project, we had trouble with hard drives that were to big, and
graphics cards that were too new. How do I avoid that when I go out and
buy PC’s next year, to run QNX?

Scott

CPU: seems like any, i’v checked Intel,AMD,SMC and like this. there
almost no CPU features related code in qnx. at least it works perfect on
486, Pentium MMX, II, AMD’s K-6, don’t know about Pentium III but don’t see
reaseon to niglect this CPU. seems like any PC compatible.

Video: there are lot of supported cards, but we prefere S3 based cards
couse they work always.

HDD: well, for your choose, i prefere quantum. but note that there
troubles with hdd larger than 8Gb i.e. old Fsys.eide dosn’t like big drives.
it was partially fixed in new Fsys* but afair anyway you cannot place your
qnx partition after 8Gb limit.

Motherboard: same, have no sugestions, should be checked.

Mouse: kind of a religion, i didn’t know that it is so difficult to
write Input that would support all popular kinds
of mouse. it may work and may not to, this is imho the most difficult
thing to choose for photon. i’v tryed ms mouse, genius, logitech. on one
machine it works, on another it don’t. why i don’t know, no correlations.

// wbr

5

CPU: seems like any, i’v checked Intel,AMD,SMC and like this. there
almost no CPU features related code in qnx. at least it works perfect on
486, Pentium MMX, II, AMD’s K-6, don’t know about Pentium III but don’t
see
reaseon to niglect this CPU. seems like any PC compatible.

As long as the chip is x86 compatible it should work.

6

In article <8lb4p6$psr$1@inn.qnx.com>, "Gary says…

CPU: seems like any, i’v checked Intel,AMD,SMC and like this. there
almost no CPU features related code in qnx. at least it works perfect on
486, Pentium MMX, II, AMD’s K-6, don’t know about Pentium III but don’t
see
reaseon to niglect this CPU. seems like any PC compatible.

As long as the chip is x86 compatible it should work.

It would be nice if that would be the only neccessery criterion :slight_smile:

A computer system consists not only out of hardware … there are also 2-3MB
code (mostly assembler) of the system BIOS which handles at the lowest level the
hardware devices, plug-and-‘pray’, initialization of PCI devices a.s.o .

If the BIOS/hardware configuration doesn’t work 100% … you are in a real
trouble. So you have also to look to the BIOS … and who is handling it.

As a matter of fact … bigger companies get a better support from manufacturers
of PC chip sets.

So TEST the system ‘before you buy’ … especially if you deal with a smaller
computer manufacturer!

Regards

Armin

7

Armin Steinhoff <Armin@Steinhoff_de> wrote in message
news:8lc0bi$n3v@drn.newsguy.com…

In article <8lb4p6$psr$> 1@inn.qnx.com> >, "Gary says…


CPU: seems like any, i’v checked Intel,AMD,SMC and like this. there
almost no CPU features related code in qnx. at least it works perfect
on
486, Pentium MMX, II, AMD’s K-6, don’t know about Pentium III but don’t
see
reaseon to niglect this CPU. seems like any PC compatible.

As long as the chip is x86 compatible it should work.

It would be nice if that would be the only neccessery criterion > :slight_smile:

I was responding to his post concerning ONLY CPU’s. As long as the CPU is
fully x86 compatible, the CPU will work just fine.

A computer system consists not only out of hardware … there are also
2-3MB
code (mostly assembler) of the system BIOS which handles at the lowest
level the
hardware devices, plug-and-‘pray’, initialization of PCI devices a.s.o .

Yes.

If the BIOS/hardware configuration doesn’t work 100% … you are in a real
trouble. So you have also to look to the BIOS … and who is handling it.

Yes.

As a matter of fact … bigger companies get a better support from
manufacturers
of PC chip sets.

So TEST the system ‘before you buy’ … especially if you deal with a
smaller
computer manufacturer!

Yes.

Regards

Armin

8

All the parts people are listing come in any number of systems. But the way they
are strung together, by the bios, as Armin says, and by custom hardware
configurations, two systems with identical parts, can behave differently under QNX!
What I’m looking for are recomendations of compelete systems that you have used and
that work well with QNX. We need a fairly reliable vendor, with good support, but
want to stay away from the “Big” names, because every other computer they build
comes with a different graphics card.

Scott

Armin Steinhoff wrote:

In article <8lb4p6$psr$> 1@inn.qnx.com> >, "Gary says…


CPU: seems like any, i’v checked Intel,AMD,SMC and like this. there
almost no CPU features related code in qnx. at least it works perfect on
486, Pentium MMX, II, AMD’s K-6, don’t know about Pentium III but don’t
see
reaseon to niglect this CPU. seems like any PC compatible.

As long as the chip is x86 compatible it should work.

It would be nice if that would be the only neccessery criterion > :slight_smile:

A computer system consists not only out of hardware … there are also 2-3MB
code (mostly assembler) of the system BIOS which handles at the lowest level the
hardware devices, plug-and-‘pray’, initialization of PCI devices a.s.o .

If the BIOS/hardware configuration doesn’t work 100% … you are in a real
trouble. So you have also to look to the BIOS … and who is handling it.

As a matter of fact … bigger companies get a better support from manufacturers
of PC chip sets.

So TEST the system ‘before you buy’ … especially if you deal with a smaller
computer manufacturer!

Regards

Armin

9

Extra Note: I would download a copy of the bootable QNX floppy Web Browser
on a single floppy. I believe they have two versions: modem and LAN. Take
one of each. Pretest them on your home/office systems. Then when you go to
the store give them a try. Granted the latest CD will support newer drivers,
but this is a possible starting point for validating the hardware platform.
Our company tends to buy from distant distributers - so I have personally
used this option.

To the QNX People - It might be worthwhile to develope a QNX Floppy designed
specifically to evaluate hardware…
-Paul

Paul Russell <paul@jenosys.com> wrote in message
news:8laegu$frt$1@inn.qnx.com…

If you don’t get as many replies as you expect to this message, it may be
because many of us are awaiting the same answers as we haven’t yet found
“reasonable” solutions for hardware selection.

Up to this point I locate a piece of hardware, then search comp.os.qnx
using
dejanews.com or remarq.com for comments on the piece. If this pulls
nothing
then I post a query as to other’s experience with it.

Seeing the item in QNX’s supported list is only enough to indicate that
you
should check further, not a guarantee that iot will work with the latest
CD.
I’ve found SCSI and LAN cards in the list that didn’t work without latest
Beta drivers, and some that still don’t work. (It would be nice if the
list
indicated what CD/Beta supported the device).

Understanding QNX’s position is also easy. If I can’t buy the same
hardware
each production run because the SCSI/LAN/etc manufacturer has come out
with
a newer device and obsoleted the one that worked, then I can’t expect QNX
to
keep up with them either. They’d go broke trying to get a sample of each
item. And they don’t have the clout to tell the hardware manufacturer that
they shouldn’t do it that way.

Sometimes I wonder is MS isn’t driving the manufacturers to newer
items
that aren’t backwards compatible just to keep the other Op/sys companies
off
balance. Many designers would happily make their devices backwards
compatible, at least for the minimum feature set

Paul

J. Scott Franko <> jsfranko@switch.com> > wrote in message
news:> 3978BA5A.A4FBAEF2@switch.com> …
QSSL doesn’t go far enough in recomending a PC platform for use with
QNX. They will tell me, off the record, that they don’t like certain
manufacturer’s PC’s, but they won’t tell me who they do like.

What do you all recomend? How do you choose a PC platform when you go
spec a new system that you are going to build? Anyone working in
Process Control, how do you find an industrial PC that works well with
QNX?

Our last project, we had trouble with hard drives that were to big, and
graphics cards that were too new. How do I avoid that when I go out and
buy PC’s next year, to run QNX?

Scott

10

Things To Avoid:

  1. Any box with a picture of some hideous creature holding a BFG

Uhhh BFG??? I remember a Toronto Punk band called the BFG’s, I assume it’s
not the same thing…

  1. Anything claiming to have “Advanced Management Capabilities”
  2. CPU’s that need 7 CD’s to configure the BIOS
  3. If it says “Optimized for Windows!” on the box.
  4. The motherboard requires a custom cable to connect a serial device
  5. CPU requires more than 16 fans to operate.
  6. Translucent cases.
    :sunglasses: > Has a front shaped like a sports car.

Karl

\

Karl A. Morant | TEL 519 836 1291 | karl@connecttech.com
Connect Tech Inc | FAX 519 836 4878 | http://www.connecttech.com

Connect Tech Inc. is a leading manufacturer of multi-port serial
adapters since 1985.

11

To the QNX People - It might be worthwhile to develope a QNX Floppy
designed
specifically to evaluate hardware…
-Paul

Great idea!

12

“Paul Russell” <paul@jenosys.com> writes:

To the QNX People - It might be worthwhile to develope a QNX Floppy designed
specifically to evaluate hardware…
-Paul

We built one of these when we were shopping for laptops. It takes a
bit of time, but it is certainly possible if you own a copy of the
OS. The only down side is that you cannot distribute this floppy to
others, since it includes a copy of the OS and would violate your
license. If you come up with something, post a script that builds a
floppy, and I’m sure that people will offer comments and suggestions
for how to test “just one more thing”.

Andrew Thomas, President, Cogent Real-Time Systems Inc.
2430 Meadowpine Boulevard, Suite 105, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada L5N 6S2
Email: andrew@cogent.ca WWW: http://www.cogent.ca

13

“J. Scott Franko” <jsfranko@switch.com> writes:

All the parts people are listing come in any number of systems. But
the way they are strung together, by the bios, as Armin says, and by
custom hardware configurations, two systems with identical parts,
can behave differently under QNX! What I’m looking for are
recomendations of compelete systems that you have used and that work
well with QNX. We need a fairly reliable vendor, with good support,
but want to stay away from the “Big” names, because every other
computer they build comes with a different graphics card.

We have bought several Gateway computers, some at the cutting edge of
the CPU curve, all successfully. We have never bought an ethernet
card from Gateway, and have always specified a Mach-64 based video
card. When you buy a computer for QNX, my suggestion is to buy from a
good name, but only get hardware you “know”. For the parts that are
iffy, buy them separately. Ethernet cards are cheap. Buy one at a
time until you find something that works well, then buy that same
model in bulk. Same, if necessary, for video cards.

Example:

MOBO: Intel BX motherboard, any CPU
Video: ATI Rage Pro or Rage+ (AGP)
Net: Linksys NE2000 compatible (10Mbit, ISA or PCI)
CD: Any ATAPI IDE CDROM
Keyboard: PS/2 keyboard
Mouse: Microsoft 2, 3 or intelli PS/2 mouse

I’ve never had a microsoft mouse that failed on the computer that it
came with, nor any PS/2 keyboard that failed on the computer that it
came with.

I’ve never had problems with desktop computers, so long as the
motherboard had no video or network built in. The problem comes with
laptops where you cannot alter the parts, or with machines that you
plan to dual-boot into Windows to play Quake 3 and therefore need the
fastest and newest.

Andrew

Andrew Thomas, President, Cogent Real-Time Systems Inc.
2430 Meadowpine Boulevard, Suite 105, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada L5N 6S2
Email: andrew@cogent.ca WWW: http://www.cogent.ca

14

I know that QSSL does some on the fly compression to get all the neat stuff for
the demo onto one floppy. I guess they create a ram disk, and script to
uncompress a bunch of stuff from the floppy to the ram disk, and then boot the ram
disk? Anybody have a description for setting this up? What sort of stuff did you
put on your floppy. If you were to test it various machines, I would assume that
it would have to contain the trap binaries to query the system hardware, and the
drivers to support what it might find. Sounds like much for a floppy.

Scott

Andrew Thomas wrote:

“Paul Russell” <> paul@jenosys.com> > writes:
To the QNX People - It might be worthwhile to develope a QNX Floppy designed
specifically to evaluate hardware…
-Paul

We built one of these when we were shopping for laptops. It takes a
bit of time, but it is certainly possible if you own a copy of the
OS. The only down side is that you cannot distribute this floppy to
others, since it includes a copy of the OS and would violate your
license. If you come up with something, post a script that builds a
floppy, and I’m sure that people will offer comments and suggestions
for how to test “just one more thing”.

Andrew Thomas, President, Cogent Real-Time Systems Inc.
2430 Meadowpine Boulevard, Suite 105, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada L5N 6S2
Email: > andrew@cogent.ca > WWW: > http://www.cogent.ca

15

Prime Mover <prime_mover@canada.com> wrote:

Uhhh BFG??? I remember a Toronto Punk band called the BFG’s, I assume it’s
not the same thing…

Maybe it’s the BFG1000 of Doom fame. That would be Big F*@#'in Gun.



Mitchell Schoenbrun --------- maschoen@pobox.com

16

J. Scott Franko wrote in message <397CB5D6.D42D4238@switch.com>…

I know that QSSL does some on the fly compression to get all the neat stuff
for
the demo onto one floppy. I guess they create a ram disk, and script to
uncompress a bunch of stuff from the floppy to the ram disk, and then boot
the ram
disk? Anybody have a description for setting this up? What sort of stuff
did you
put on your floppy. If you were to test it various machines, I would
assume that
it would have to contain the trap binaries to query the system hardware,
and the



drivers to support what it might find. Sounds like much for a floppy.

don’t forget that you are alway can make several floppies: one is
bootable with a
minimal set of needed utilites, second for video trapping, third for network
and etc
and use appropriate floppy when you need to check video/network/hdd…

ps: or to burn bootable cd ? of couse, not all bioses support booting from
cdrom,
but at least all modern does.

// wbr

Scott

17

In article <397C5E30.CE8B96B0@switch.com>, "J. says…

All the parts people are listing come in any number of systems. But the way
they are strung together, by the bios, as Armin says, and by custom hardware
configurations, two systems with identical parts, can behave differently under
QNX! What I’m looking for are recomendations of compelete systems that you have
used and that work well with QNX. We need a fairly reliable vendor, with good
support, but want to stay away from the “Big” names, because every other
computer they build comes with a different graphics card.

… not only that. They have very often proprietary hardware parts … e.g. try
to replace a simple floppy drive of a Compaq system =:-/.

IMHO … ‘main stream’ mother boards without network, VGA, audio interfaces or
any other fancy things on board would be a good approach … but in any cases
you have to test it.

Regards

Armin

Scott

Armin Steinhoff wrote:

In article <8lb4p6$psr$> 1@inn.qnx.com> >, "Gary says…


CPU: seems like any, i’v checked Intel,AMD,SMC and like this. there
almost no CPU features related code in qnx. at least it works perfect on
486, Pentium MMX, II, AMD’s K-6, don’t know about Pentium III but don’t
see
reaseon to niglect this CPU. seems like any PC compatible.

As long as the chip is x86 compatible it should work.

It would be nice if that would be the only neccessery criterion > :slight_smile:

A computer system consists not only out of hardware … there are also 2-3MB
code (mostly assembler) of the system BIOS which handles at the lowest level the
hardware devices, plug-and-‘pray’, initialization of PCI devices a.s.o .

If the BIOS/hardware configuration doesn’t work 100% … you are in a real
trouble. So you have also to look to the BIOS … and who is handling it.

As a matter of fact … bigger companies get a better support from manufacturers
of PC chip sets.

So TEST the system ‘before you buy’ … especially if you deal with a smaller
computer manufacturer!

Regards

Armin

18

Ahhh the days of QDOOM.

K


“Mitchell Schoenbrun” <maschoen@tsoft.com> wrote in message
news:snpkvjnd3j177@corp.supernews.com…

Prime Mover <> prime_mover@canada.com> > wrote:

Uhhh BFG??? I remember a Toronto Punk band called the BFG’s, I assume
it’s
not the same thing…

Maybe it’s the BFG1000 of Doom fame. That would be Big F*@#'in Gun.



Mitchell Schoenbrun --------- > maschoen@pobox.com

19

I know at least one modern computer whose bios did not support cd booting:
Micron

ian zagorskih wrote:

J. Scott Franko wrote in message <> 397CB5D6.D42D4238@switch.com> >…
I know that QSSL does some on the fly compression to get all the neat stuff
for
the demo onto one floppy. I guess they create a ram disk, and script to
uncompress a bunch of stuff from the floppy to the ram disk, and then boot
the ram
disk? Anybody have a description for setting this up? What sort of stuff
did you
put on your floppy. If you were to test it various machines, I would
assume that
it would have to contain the trap binaries to query the system hardware,
and the

drivers to support what it might find. Sounds like much for a floppy.

don’t forget that you are alway can make several floppies: one is
bootable with a
minimal set of needed utilites, second for video trapping, third for network
and etc
and use appropriate floppy when you need to check video/network/hdd…

ps: or to burn bootable cd ? of couse, not all bioses support booting from
cdrom,
but at least all modern does.

// wbr

Scott

20

In qdn.public.qnx4 Paul Russell <paul@jenosys.com> wrote:

Sometimes I wonder is MS isn’t driving the manufacturers to newer items
that aren’t backwards compatible just to keep the other Op/sys companies off
balance. Many designers would happily make their devices backwards
compatible, at least for the minimum feature set

You know… if you could corner the market on mice, and then make sure
they only work with your GUI, you’d have a pretty good lead in the GUI
area…

QSSL doesn’t go far enough in recomending a PC platform for use with
QNX. They will tell me, off the record, that they don’t like certain
manufacturer’s PC’s, but they won’t tell me who they do like.

PC’s ought to just be PC’s. Assuming they aren’t stuffed with
proprietary configuration mechanisms, we pretty much like them
all the same.

The ones we don’t like do weird things in undocumented and weird
ways, but we can’t just post a list of them in public or we’ll never
be able to convince them to tell us how to make them work.

And as far as telling you what we do like, we do. There is a list
of supported graphics cards, network chipsets, hard drive controllers
etc. that we do like, and we post it.

Now if you ask us if we like an “Ickman Systems Celebron 4000”, we’re
just going to look at you slack jawed. We’ve never heard of it.