EEVblog #458 - Industrial Computer

What's inside the ICP/IEI industrial rack mount computer Dave got from auction?
Does it boot?

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[Mostlyharmless]

GRUB is the GRand Unified Bootloader. Incedently that's where you need to be in order to boot the RHL into single user mode to clear the root password. Provided the admin who set the machine up didn't put in a bootloader password, you can punch into the password file and edit it. They usually don't unless it's a critical system. As for the keyboard and mouse not working, I'd bet pennies to dollars you have to be shelled in via the serial ports. A fun trick to foil hackers is disabling the USB drivers to prevent direct access to the machine. See: Above password clearing attack.

[vedasticks]

grub is the bootloader used for alot of linux based systems. very versatile system allowing you to select from multiple installed kernels and also will allow booting multiple OS's including windows

[KSDigitial]

a lot of people confuse industrial machines with supercomputers, when in reality they are based around very low wattage cpus, even the mars rover is a g3 computer

[mostlymessingabout]

If the motherboard plug into something even bigger, shouldn't  that be called Grandmother board?

[bewing]

Oh and BTW, win 3.11 wasn't really an Operating System, it was a window manager running on top of DOS, only really providing an easier to manage UI for users to manage files, installations etc. People who didn't need that stuff never really launched into windows since it was a pretty big resource hog. Windows NT of course was another beast entirely, which is why that was the foundation for all later versions, not just the "professional" sector. I personally never really used windows before win 95, and even then I generally just used it for it's ease of multi tasking, so generally I had a script that booted it, launched a couple of DOS prompts and the didn't bother me anymore.

It is surprising that you say industrial computers back then launched 3.11 in seconds. Not the seconds part, booting DOS and then loading the window manager was a pretty light weight task compared to loading modern operating systems. No, what baffles me is the fact 3.11 was run on any kind of industrial or otherwise critical machine given how NT was both much more stable and much more easily managed as a part of a larger "ecosystem". Can't think of any time I really saw windows 3.11 being used professionally outside of small 1 to 6 person business to write e-mail and use "Windows Works" to create invoices and extremely annoying flyers, menus, price list, ads etc.

[technodaz]

I have one up stairs it's a old CCTV system, amazing system but the amount of pci cards and slots in use and the construction and frame are a work of art. Not to mention it has a pci system on chip card with its os built in, hardisks hot swappable, shame every cap on the mother board is pop'd

[gerjaison]

Depends what you do, secondly windows 3.11 isn't an operating system. It really is just DOS. DOS is reliable to me, unless of course you start loading graphics drivers to play games, well that was in the 90s.

[FirstWizardZorander]

Yup, as people have said... the Linux kernel was probably custom-complied and slimmed down (no USB support). Booting up the other entry, the one not labelled "custom" would probably enable you to use the mouse/keyboard. Not certain, though.

[thecooldude]

That is NOT a PCI slot at the end of the board towards the front. It is a 32 bit ISA slot.

[Ivo--]

Win 3.11 wasn't that great but it ran on top of DOS which was great.

Also, Dave, if you need help "cracking" the password on that thing send me a message, it's trivial to get into these things if they haven't encrypted anything and it doesn't look like they have.

[aryesegal]

Dave, if I may, a tip for future videos: whenever in POST (the screen you see when first powering the system) you could simply press the PAUSE\BREAK button on your keyboard. This will halt all processes so you could read the information on screen. When ready to go on, simply press enter. ;)

[DusteDdekay]

So if i need ISA in 2016, industrial PCs are the way to go? :) Maybe I should have one, for playing around with all my old PCI and ISA cards :D

[Slarti]

As an IT developer one of the best things I ever did, to learn about the inners of a computer, was to build one myself - even if it was a bit more expensive.

The best bit was that I did not get all that extra guff that you get with a pre-built model.

[vedasticks]

as for the mouse not working, ive never used redhat maybe the version of redhat doest support usb mice.

been using linux for 6 years now and its rock solid as long as you dont mess with it.

[wmblemania]

Aye, let's just remember why we're here: our love of The Dave.

A good weekend to everyone.

[EEVblog]

Dust usually doesn't get in due to the filters, and the socket contacts are usually heavily gold plated to prevent corrosion. But yes, not ideal. But when you have to mount half a dozen NI cards, there isn't much you can do about that.

[MattHill]

Really nice video covering this stuff, I've a noisy 5U rack mount industrial PC next to my desk at work at the moment, having returned to the world of electronics, industrial control and measurement after a few years away.

[oajitho]

You have to enable detection of usb keyboard and mouse in the BIOS. Award BIOS is quite common in old motherboards.

[dusterdude]

Hey Dave,
the inside of this computer reminds me of one I had back in the late 80's
it was a Basis 108 And was German made. But it was Pre -hard Drive Era, Dos based OS. and had two 5 1/4 Floppy drives. But it worked out because it was compatable with the Apple II E computer which I had learned programming on. and I wrote Alot of interesting programs on it.

[MatthewSuffidy]

You would not been able to log into it with out a former username and password unless there was an obviously guessable one, or one without a password. You can sometimes get around that by booting a live or rescue linux from cd and then mounting the system drive and altering the passwd files, or for example, just nulling a password... in etc/passwd in the mount. Then you could reboot and log in. Also the older config manager would want to adjust its config if you moved a card.