/tech/ - Technology★

>>1042632 (OP)

don't take my word for it but I heard they're the last AMD chips to not have the PSP co-processor or whatever.

>legacy

what do you mean? what does the FX have to do with legacy software? it is a new chip.

>Are AMD FX processors botnet

Nope, last AMD ones to be non-pozzed.

Although you could say that SMM is a backdoor and in that case everything post 386SX is pozzed.

What do you mean by legacy? Can't you just compile a program you want to use for a different (less botnet) architecture?

AMD is botnet, but look there:

https://libreboot.org/docs/hardware/

But you should rather buy EOMA68-A20 card or wait for Libre Risc-V.

https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop

https://www.crowdsupply.com/libre-risc-v/m-class

Or just run it in a qemu VM

>>1042647

could you just say that or could it really be a legitimate backdoor that's actually botnet? I doubt that older chips are botnet the same way new ones are, there may be backdoors but not full botnet.

I was hoping to get a Pentium 3 computer soon.

>>1042655

What ever it is you can't control it and it's vendor specific, so its a big black box.

I'd say get something you have full control over like RPi or another SBC that has documentation.

>>1042652

>What do you mean by legacy?

I want to run old proprietary software made for DOS and Windows 3.11. I require it because I own old equipment that needs the software to work and there is no libre option or emulator for it. I've been keeping around a 486 for that purpose but I'm looking to finally take it out of the mix and repurpose the machine for another purpose.

I basically want to either build a server with a non-botnet x86-64 chip to run all my old legacy software that there aren't any alternatives for or put an add-on card into a machine with a POWER9/10 or RISC-V CPU. I'm planning on building a new desktop without any botnet hardware in it but I still require support for x86-64 for a lot of software that I've collected over the years.

>>1042659

By the way I know someone will say

>just use a VM

but this software requires one of those old dongles and I've been unable to get it to run inside of a VM. It refuses to run unless it's on bare metal with the dongle inserted. Patching out the dongle is a bit above my head and the software is so rare I haven't seen anyone else attempting to do it. I've actually only run into a handful of people over the years that have this software and they all complain about having the same issue and have to keep around an old machine just for this purpose.

The dongle has to be inserted into a parallel port. I've attempted to patch out this requirement but this is a bit over my head. Any anons know of similar software that's had this type of security removed? I'm happy to learn how to do this. I'd really prefer not having to worry about losing the dongle. I almost lost it a couple of times over the years. Getting a replacement is impossible as the company that made it went out of business in the late 90s.

>>1042656

in case it wasn't clear, FX is not a "legacy: chip. from what you've said it looks like you'll have to stick with multiple systems for the time being.

what dongle is it and what do you use it for?

Here's an idea: dedicate a system specifically for using your old software and its mandated hardware dongle. That way you don't have to dick around with finding a board that will have a parallel port, but not be a pain in the ass to use for other tasks. Of course, every time I recommend such a solution to people, they piss and moan like they live in a fucking shoebox or something and don't have a spare 2 square feet of space for another desktop.

>>1042665

It's just an old parallel port dongle I'm not sure what kind. It looks generic and specific to this company. I'll try to get a picture of it and some more information the next time I'm at the shop.

I use it for a collating machine that my family bought in the early 90s. You have to program the machine with the computer. The machine itself takes up an entire large room. I can't just upgrade it to something new because I don't have a spare 20k laying around. The dongle doesn't seem to play nice with anything newer than Windows 98. I've been attempting to figure out a way to use the software in a VM or a more recent OS for about 15 years now. Ideally I'd like to get it working in Linux because we've managed to migrate all the other PCs in the shop over to Linux.

>>1042666

I don't mind dedicating a machine to this I'd just prefer not to since the company went out of business and if I ever lose the dongle I'm fucked. I was hoping maybe some other anon had managed to by-pass a similar DRM.

https://www.coreboot.org/Binary_situation

anything from AMD before 2012 should be without PSP. Rhe most powerful CPUs without PSP are Trinity I think.

>>1042667

You said parallel port. If I were you I would try a parallel port to USB adapter and then USB pass through in a VM. But then you'd need USB drivers for that VM and then the problem would be you're connecting a parallel port device as USB. Seems like that would be an issue but maybe solvable with software.

Although if I were really you I'd still stick with the old hardware, maybe buy a replacement pc to keep in case and some parts.

>is x botnet

quality /tech/ thread.

>>1042632 (OP)

Yes, the FX series are pre-PSP. The FX-8350 is probably the most practical bet, as the FX 9xxx series have ridiculous 220W TDP that only a few motherboards can support, and require liquid cooling. You might also consider Opterons if you want a real beast. I have dual Opteron 6282 SEs in an ASUS KPGE-D16 motherboard. This has a Libreboot port, and is close to being the most powerful non-botnet x86 system you can get.

>>1042677

>parallel port to USB adapter and then USB pass through in a VM

That almost certainly won't work... Windows 3.1 or 98 running as guest is very unlikely to support the USB to parallel adapter. What might work is if the virtual parallel port provided to the Linux host by the adapter can be passed through to the VM. I found a potentially informative thread here:

https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/usb-to-parallel-passthrough-as-a-parallel-port-patch.15431/

>>1042699

>dual Opteron 6282 SEs in an ASUS KPGE-D16 motherboard

How much did that cost you? I took a quick look at eBay and they're asking $900 for the cpu.

>>1042656

but doesn't the pi require proprietary firmware to run anyway? and even so the CPU is a black box too isn't it?

>>1042699

good info man, saving your post.

>That almost certainly won't work... Windows 3.1 or 98 running as guest is very unlikely to support the USB to parallel adapter.

yeah that's the problem I realized hence why I thought just maybe there may be some piece of software somewhere that lets you send parallel port output to a USB device on 98. unlikely though.

>>1042739

I just wonder how many people have this same problem. I know the local screen printing place had the same issue with some of their equipment. There was a lot of industrial equipment made around that time that are tied to an early IBM compatible PC with a dongle for DRM. As far as I know most of this stuff was never worked around and everybody is still keeping an old 386 or 486 around to keep that stuff going. I'd really like to learn how these things work.

>>1042769

Old equipment relying on serial and parallel ports is why they are still common on modern low end motherboards. The h310 board I am using right now still has headers for both. If you dig a bit you can even find modern Chinese boards with floppy controllers on them.

>>1042632 (OP)

I suggest you buy them real fast (first gens) or chances are they'll roll out a "version2" with backdoors or agents have found out about the backdoors and may install them during shipment or in the factory for version2 production. A lot of thinkpads are sold out there for the "anons" but chances are they've been tampered with and probably has some DMA backdoor device hooked to some test voltage shit. They usually throw the core2 cpus and replace them with some good processor and sell in the cheap. If that isn't any suspicious you have a gut problem.

>>1042705

You must have just caught it at a bad moment, they go for much cheaper than that used on eBay. I paid £45 GBP for 2 CPUs and £90 for the motherboard. Admittedly, that was quite a bargain - I've seen the processors generally priced around £50 each. It's really a question of waiting for availability - sooner or later some server room is being refreshed and batches of them are being disposed of at reasonable prices.

>>1042806

Isn't RAM very high for those though? How much does it cost to max out 128GB of RAM?

>>1042811

I bought 4 x 8GB RDIMMS on ebay for £76. That's enough for my purposes, though I'm thinking of doubling it just for performance, as I'm only using half of my memory channels at the moment.

>>1042814

I found the CPUs for about the same price you did and RAM isn't too bad but the motherboard seems a bit high for what it is. Did this thing get popular after the libreboot for it came out or something? I'm thinking about picking one up for my new workstation. Seems like a pretty cheap PC for what it is if you don't play games. What graphics and sound cars did you pair with it?

>>1042815

Motherboard prices always start to spike like 5-6 years after they go out of production. I sold a used x58 board for $250 a couple years ago.

>>1042769

Hey, this is not an uncommon DRM from back in the day. I'm not well versed in it, but have seen retro computing videos where they are needed for specialized high end software (i.e. video editing or CAD).

Perhaps you could get some sort of software/hardware to snoop on the communications traffic being sent to the parallel port and see what is actually going on. The likely scenario is that the dongle has a micro controller in it that just runs some input value sent from the software through a function and sends back a return value so the software knows that it has the dong there.

If you are any good with puters, you could also try running the application through a disassembler and seeing if you can figure out where the "dongle" routine is and try to bypass it. There are generic tutorials on how to to do that, but difficulty depends on what was done to the code executable, some will have be ran through obfuscators to make such tasks difficult. In your case, since the program is only used for a specific machine, that isn't likely and any DRM routines are probably half-assed.

>>1042816

The pre-transition non IME and PSP x86 machines will probably be the the most sought after and fetch higher prices.

Certain processor generations will probably be sold for nothing like P4 based hardware. The only people that would want that crap are those looking for period specific stuff.

Just a friendly reminder, if you're buying motherboards from the early to mid 2000s, capacitor plague was a problem, so take that into consideration. If you don't want to do a recap, look for boards that don't use electrolytic capacitors.

>>1042853

actually parts are quite cheap on aliexpress, I bought coreboot compatible motherboard for like 60$.

>>1042677

Would Windows ME work there, it has the DOS backend with USB support.

>>1042815

>Did this thing get popular after the libreboot for it came out or something?

Maybe so. It's not like I've been tracking the ebay prices, but I did notice that a couple of "libre hardware" specialists are selling pre-librebooted motherboards and complete systems for high prices:

Vikings motherboard €395: https://store.vikings.net/libre-friendly-hardware/d16-ryf-certfied

Vikings workstation (around €3,000 with dual CPU): https://store.vikings.net/libre-friendly-hardware/vikings-d16-workstation

Technoethical motherboard €1,500(!): https://tehnoetic.com/desktops/tet-d16

Technoethical workstation €3,700: https://tehnoetic.com/desktops/tet-d16ws

I've no idea how many they sell at these prices. Maybe they hoover up a lot of the used stock off ebay. I would guess that the ultimate price ceiling for these systems is going to be limited by the lower end of the POWER systems Raptor are selling - if it's not appreciably cheaper, it makes no sense to buy one of these instead of a brand new Talos/Blackbird. Anyone this concerned with avoiding botnet will likely be using free software all the way, and have little concern with x86 compatibility.

>What graphics and sound cars did you pair with it?

I'm using an RX-550. Your choices in this regard are somewhat dictated by your paranoia level and/or ideological commitment to free software. The AMDGPU driver for recent AMD cards is great, by far the best Linux graphics driver, with the system side now fully free software merged into the mainline linux source tree. It does still depend on a proprietary binary firmware blob running on the card itself though, and some people object to that. The best available options to avoid blobs completely are older Nvidia cards using the Nouvea driver.

One note of caution regarding these systems is the hefty PSU and cooling requirements. You require a PSU with 2 8-pin ATX12v connectors. I'd avoid using adapters if you don't want trouble. I'm using a Riotoro Enigma G2 850W.

Cooling-wise, you'll need a hell of a case to air-cool dual 140W TDP CPUs, or opt for watercooling. There are off-the-shelf waterblocks available for the G34 socket, I opted for the Alphacool Eisblock XPX. My system is half built a the moment, up and running with the 1U server air coolers it came with, but they're so loud it's literally uncomfortable to be in the same room.

Dunno why /g/tards and you sperg out about this any PX connected to the internet is by definition back doored into another pc

>>1043048

All is botnet you newfag, doesn't matter if you're using a motherboard with trannyboot or not.

Stop using the internet if you're that worried of being spied on.

>>1043067

>Stop using the internet if you're that worried of being spied on.

Is the same logic as; if you've got nothing to hide then you shouldn't worry yourself with mass surveillance. Yea, way to be another cog of the divide, conquer then control paradigm.... mannnn

There are tools and methods to lock out your devices; if you apply an understanding of their most vulnerable flaws.

When was the last time you changed your default router login?

>>1042632 (OP)

PSP and TrustZone

You're probably better off using AMD Opteron or anything server cpus but if you're paying that much just get a Talos II.

Your only last problem would be backdoors like the time when Dell servers had backdoors but that came preinstalled or someone with clearance put it in there.

>why servers

Mostly monitored and supervised network activity so it means any attempt would reveal the target IP address and would cause uproar in biz scene.

Attacks on users usually are done remotely when the victim computer is on idle state while in an unrestricted network but that keeps the HDD from being accessed so what they do now is put SSds that still run at low power state (100mA or less) through UEFI botnet and non-removable batteries (now you know why it's SO shilled).

These types of attacks can only snoop on you through webcam or microphone if using HDD I even suspect Terry to be the one who programmed the bios backdoor thing they use right now because temple OS looks like it's meant to sit and run inside reserved space in your RAM as bios backdoor with full net/webcam/microphone stack but his clearance permits him to not say anything about it or they will put him down

Hardware should not come with backdoor though it may be malware flashed upon refurbishing/discontinue triggers or at certain RTC time when it's EOL.

>>1043517

>his clearance permits him to not say anything about it or they will put him down

I've got bad news for you, anon...

>>1043716

Canada has a rogue American hacker on a mission from god.

What else is new?

>>1043761

>Canada has

God has him now.

>>1042652

OP could also go the POWER route and get a Talos II

>>1042699

>and require liquid cooling

Bullshit. High-end air coolers like e.g. Noctua NH-D15 can easily deal with that amount of heat.

>>1043067

>A nigger takes a piss

>Makes my Big Mac without washing his hands

>Guess I might as well suck his cock now

This is how gay you sound

>>1043933

Hardly bullshit, considering it's AMD's official recommendation, and they supplied it with water cooling themselves. Can you run it on air? Sure, there is nothing that fundamentally limits air cooling to a certain TDP level, but by the time you've considered the practicalities it's puzzling why you would want to.

Taking into account the size and cost of such an air cooler, and the case and fans you need to provide it with adequate airflow, then an all-in-one water cooler that moves the heat to the edge of the case and exhausts it directly outside is a pretty much a no-brainer.

>>1042664

just run it on an old laptop you sperg

>>1043978

>there is nothing that fundamentally limits air cooling to a certain TDP level, but by the time you've considered the practicalities it's puzzling why you would want to.

>Implying watercooling is more practical than an NH-D15

>>1043984

Agree

>>1043985

>Implying watercooling is more practical than an NH-D15

>Implying case air flow isn't a major issue when air-cooling a 220W TDP.

>Implying affordable and easy to install all-in-one water coolers haven't been available for many years.

>Implying AMD didn't bundle one with the CPU in question as its stock cooler, for just $40 more than the bare chip.

>>1042652

>But you should rather buy EOMA68-A20 card

Does anyone actually have one of these yet? From what I can see, It appears to have been funded nearly 3 years ago, and still hasn't delivered product into the hands of the backers.

>>1042667

Late as hell but a lot of dongles from back then were basically just a bunch of resistors stuck in a case, some 74xxx logic if things got really fancy. Pretty easy to reverse engineer. The bigger problem is probably the way the software tries to directly access the parallel port, this will straight up not work in newer windows versions, nor will it with USB to parallel port adapters and other such things. Easiest to just keep an old system around for such things.

Also holy fuck it got obnoxious to post here via Tor. WTF

>Is X botnet

Yes.

>>1059593

>Does anyone actually have one of these yet? From what I can see, It appears to have been funded nearly 3 years ago, and still hasn't delivered product into the hands of the backers.

It's almost ready, it is going to be delivered next month, if everything goes smoothly. Delays were mostly caused, because the development wasn't as fast as expected and one of the devs had problems, because one member of his family died and the other one had a serious surgery. Also Luke decided not to run tests before Chinese new year, because factory workers are in a rush and the quality of assemblies is lower by that.

https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop/updates/500-micro-desktop-pcb-assemblies