FreeBSD on the Vortex86DX CPU | Hacker News Reader

FreeBSD on the Vortex86DX CPU

cambus.net

51 pointsfcambus14 comments

The Vortex86 series is the little-known x86 survivor...the only real non-Intel or AMD x86 chip with roots back in the Socket 7 days.

Centaur, with their Winchip design, and Cyrix both got bought by VIA. VIA did have a good run, but their custom CPU designs kind of fizzled out before they re-sold Centaur to Intel.

As far as I am aware, Vortex86 CPUs are still in production, unlike VIA's.

> As far as I am aware, Vortex86 CPUs are still in production, unlike VIA's.

Did VIA CPUs actually stop production at some point? As far as I know, they were restricted to shipping on a shrinking lineup of VIA's own boards, and then licensed to Zhaoxin to support requirements of certain organizations in China to deploy PCs using domestic chips.

If there is ongoing production, the supply is miniscule. At the very least, VIA no longer has a CPU design team.

Zhaoxin chips do have the "CentaurHauls" vendor string, but I think they are different enough to not be "VIA" chips.

TheRasteri on had a set of Youtube videos where we created a DOS/Windows 98 gaming PC using the Vortex86DX and when through a set of benchmarks and comparisons. The retro enthusiast community started about the WeeCee that he created.

https://youtu.be/6cXdWMOl8QE?t=45

Edit to change the YouTube video start time to where the TheRasteri gets into the details of the Vortex86 history and benchmarking.

Considering Vortex86 is still currently produced, are x86 compatible and free from IME and PSP, could they qualify as modern processors for fsf's ryf certification?

> the EBOX 3300A-H, with a 1GHz CPU and 256MB of RAM

I still don't get what people use these devices for.

Vortex86 SoCs were once quite commonly found on embedded boards used in industrial automation. Outside of that I'm willing to bet you'd find them in semi-embedded applications like point-of-sale devices.

A previous company I worked at used a Vortex86DX embedded board as a replacement for an older Pentium/Celeron board that went EOL. It was one of the last x86 CPUs made that still supported the ISA bus that the product used to talk to custom hardware.

I'm always shocked how many legacy hardware/systems are still in widespread use. Companies such as DM&P that produce the Vortex86 likely have a nice solid revenue stream and will for decades.

They're small, unobtrusive, silent, low power, useful and fun.

I use a OrangePi Zero with 512MB of RAM [0] as a local DNS, webserver, torrent client and download box. It provides hostnames for devices at home, downloads my LibreOffice and Linux images, allows me to test small static webpages in a package no bigger than a literal match box.

It runs Debian based Armbian and is rock solid after updating it to Debian 11. It makes my life easier and helps me learn working with constrained systems which allows me to be better at my day job.

[0]: http://www.orangepi.org/orangepizero/

OrangePi zero has nothing to do with Vortex86

They’re equally constrained systems, even if they are not used for exactly same things.

I care for the constrained resources and the form factor. CPU architecture is just a secondary item in my list.

Industrial control systems

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