*** Recommendation needed *** Which desktop or motherboard supportsfast CPU and Windows 98

[98 Guy]

The last motherboard I ran Win98 on, was an Asrock 4CoreDual-SATA2
R2.0.

Interesting. Do you (or did you) ever hang out in any of the win-98
newsgroups?

I myself bought 6 of the Asrock 4core DUAL-VSTA motherboards back in
2007. That board has both an AGP and PCIe slot, and sockets for both
DDR and DDR2 ram (2 sticks of each, but not both simultaneously).

I'm running various Celeron-D processors on a few of them - the fastest
being the 3.46 ghz version. Back during that time I tried to get my
hands on the fastest chip at the time - a 3.6 ghz Celeron D (365) but
couldn't find anyone actually selling them (they listed them, but never
had any).

There are a couple revisions of that board, and the R2.0 I got,
has a VT8237S Southbridge which supports SATA II properly. (I
can't vouch for the other revision.)

That would make it the first that I've ever heard where win-98 had
proper (functioning) drivers for a sata II controller.

The problem now, is there are very few chipset choices.

I posted a response to this guy in the win-98 newsgroup, telling him
that basically his choices for a win-98 compatible machine were with the
8xx series chipsets, and the via PT880.

Basically, any socket 478 motherboard with an AGP slot will have drivers
for win-98.

When installing Win98, there's a trick. My Asrock board had 2GB of
RAM installed. Win98 only "likes" 512MB. You start the Win98
install. When the installer does the first reboot, you flip in a
Linux LiveCD and edit the system.ini file.

I find it simpler to just install with 512 mb, and then bring it up to 1
gb later.

I've had 2 gb installed, and have had to use himemX to limit the amount
of ram that win-98 can actually "see" to 1.25 gb. You don't have to do
that if the actual amount of physical ram is 1.5 gb or less.

I have win-98 reporting 1,157 mb of available RAM - which is the max.
Funny thing that Win-ME can go up to almost 2 gb.

I installed Win98 on that system as a joke. Just to see if it
could be done.

Ok, that explains why I've never seen you around the win-98 news groups.

Have you ever heard of KernelEx? It's an API extender that allows
win-98 to run some previously NT-only software. Gives win-98 some real
compatibility with modern software.

[SeeNoEvil]

Many thanks for this extensive research note.
Unfortunately my audio card is a PCI, not PCIe!

[98 Guy]

Today very few people bother with old Windows 98 hardware and
software. I seek knowledges from people who may have such
experiences.

You should focus your post to these groups then:

microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion
alt.windows98
alt.comp.os.windows-98

But primarily the first group.

I am probably your best source for win-98 information, since I run
win-98 on my office computer and home computer for the past 12 years.

Anyone else reading this might run win-98 as part of a dual-boot setup,
or run win-98 in a VM.

I hope to find civilized techies in the news groups.

When it comes to win-98, I am your best resource on usenet in terms of
knowing how to best configure a win-98 system for day-to-day use.

Sorry for cross posting.

Cross-posting is correct and proper for usenet.

But now you know that you won't find much help in alt.comp.hardware.

The single best advice I can give you regarding running windows 98 today
is to look at KernelEx:

http://kernelex.sourceforge.net/

[98 Guy]

Microsoft never did maintain the microsoft.public.* set of
newsgroups. They were carried by the "world-wide" usenet for
years. Microsoft was a peer among many servers that carried
those groups.

Yes, but...
MS originated the microsoft.public.* groups on its own servers.
This being Usenet, other servers started carrying them and they
acquired a life of their own.

I agree that MS did create the groups in the first place, but to what
extent (for how long) they existed ONLY on MS's servers - I don't know.

But once MS peered their servers with others (which was happening at
least as far back as 1993 I think) then the concept newsgroup
"maintenance" or administration no longer applies.

After MS shut down its Usenet server, the groups continue
to exist on many (most?) Usenet hosts.

Yes, we know that.

Because there is nothing "magical" about the string "microsoft.public."
in terms of what that string implies for the ownership, existance, or
control of usenet newsgroups that have that string in their group-name.

There were some Micro$oft haters (such as Julien Élie back in Dec 2009)
that wanted to remove the microsoft hierarchy from some "official" list
of newsgroups (or he wanted to issue group-cancel messages for those
groups). In the end, he did issue group-cancels for a few hundred MS
groups (based on little or no traffic or usage) - and some (or most)
usenet admins honored those cancels.

The motivation for this was MS's disconnection from usenet and their
internal corporate abandonment of usenet as a means of information
exchange and discussion. With MS pulling the plug on their usenet
server, there was no technical reason why the rest of the "world-wide"
usenet needed to do anything about the microsoft hierarchy other than
continue to carry them as-is. Those that wanted to do something (like
delete the groups, such as Elie) did so based on philosophical or
"house-keeping" reasons - even though many of those MS groups were very
active and had no equivalent in the alt or comp hierarchies.