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Run Win98 From 16MB Flash Disk

Posted by timothy on from the reboot-faster dept.

ksheff writes "Embedded Ware Technologies has come up with a product to run Win98 applications from a 16M Flash disk. This could be useful for companies that would like to use an existing Win9x application in an embedded system."

7 of 59 comments (clear)

  1. Additionally... by TitaniumFox · · Score: 5, Informative

    ... the folks at litepc.com offer small Win98 installations for flash cards, too.

    Cheers

    --
    -- I'd say your post was about 3 monkeys, 18 minutes.
  2. Wahuh? by zaad · · Score: 2, Informative

    If I remember correctly, some enterprising folks managed to do this a couple of years ago when hacking Virgin's Webplayer. I can't find any archives, but Google's cache (http://216.239.53.100/search?q=cache:nFk2b5yLOY8J :snoopy.net/pipermail/iopener/2000-May/thread.html +16mb+flash+webplayer&hl=en&ie=UTF-8) shows that someone managed to get WinMe to fit under 16MB back in May of 2000.

  3. Re:Disk-on-Chip by ObviousGuy · · Score: 2, Informative

    DOC can't be bought except in bulk and only by businesses. It's also extravagantly priced. And it's the only game in town, sadly.

    --
    I have been pwned because my /. password was too easy to guess.
  4. Summary by cookd · · Score: 5, Informative
    Skimming through the website, they appear to have a process to create an instant-on OS image that is custom-fitted to your application. As far as I can tell, it does something like this:

    1. Analyze your application to determine which system components it needs to run properly (which DLLs, device drivers, COM components, etc.).
    2. Create a Win98 install set up to only load the minimum necessary components.
    3. Snap a memory image of the Win98 machine with your program loaded.
    4. Compress this memory image onto a flash card.
    5. At runtime, expand the memory image back into RAM and pass control back to Win98 as if nothing had happened.


    There would probably have to be a few device drivers involved, but it sounds like a pretty cool idea to me. This way, you don't have to rewrite existing apps or retrain the dev team to make them work in an "embedded" environment.
    --
    Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
  5. On the mac side by __aafkqj3628 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Yet, you can boot an entire Mac from an iPod.

    1. Re:On the mac side by longbottle · · Score: 5, Informative

      You can install OS 9/X directly onto an iPod and boot up any mac that has FireWire with it. Very handy for full system backups and disk fixing.

      You don't install onto the iPod's buffer RAM, you install onto it's hard disk (5GB-30GB, depending on model).
      The filesystem of the hard disk inside is actually HFS+ (the extended mac filesystem) so this really isn't that difficult. The cool part though, is the firmware. Open Firmware (it's in all the "new world" macs) makes it possible to boot from any device that can hold system software, not just iPods.

      --
      I don't suffer from insanity. I enjoy every minute of it!
  6. This is nothing new by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    RISC OS has always sat in rom, ever since it was first released back in the late 1980s. A full gui desktop operating system in ~4mb of rom. And it is a heck of a lot more stable than Windows98.