Windows 98 on a Transmeta Crusoe Thin Client

Overview

This HP thin client features one of the most interesting CPUs of the early 2000s: the Transmeta Crusoe. This 1GHz processor doesn’t execute x86 instructions natively—instead, it translates them through a software layer, similar to emulation. The result is excellent power efficiency but with performance hits. In this video, I run Windows 98 SE with the Microsoft Plus themes, 3DMark 99 benchmarks, and play Descent to see how well this exotic hardware performs.

Key Moments

• Transmeta Crusoe 1GHz CPU (code morphing/translation layer architecture)
• 256MB DDR RAM and ATI Rage XL embedded graphics
• Full-size PCI Express slot (would require case modding to use)
• Via chipset with Sound Blaster emulation in pure DOS
• IDE SSD (8GB module)
• USB to PS/2 adapter for Windows 98 compatibility
• Windows 98 SE with Microsoft Plus desktop themes (Underwater theme!)
• 3DMark 99 benchmark: 1206 3D Marks, 6584 CPU 3D Marks
• Descent gameplay with full music and solid performance
• Available for sale on my eBay store

Full Transcript (Edited)

Hey there everybody, right now I’m going to show you another little quick video of one of my little thin clients here. This is a one gigahertz Transmeta Crusoe. If you’ve never heard of that CPU before, it’s under here. It’s a special CPU that came out many years ago, and what it does is it kind of runs DOS and Windows programs—or x86, really. Technically what it does is it emulates an Intel x86 instruction set by running the code through a translation layer.

There’s a—I’ll link the Wikipedia page for the processor below so you can read more about that particular CPU. What it does is it’s actually a very power-efficient way to run code, at least it turned out to be, but with some performance hits because it is doing like an emulation of sorts.

What I wanted to show you here is what performance you would get in Windows 98 running something like this. This is, like I said, the one gigahertz Transmeta Crusoe, which is high up there. I don’t know if they made a faster version or not—I’ll check quickly the Wikipedia page, but it’s high up there in performance for this particular processor. It also has 256 megs of DDR memory right here and an embedded ATI Rage XL.

I’m going to show you some 3D graphics on this. I also find it interesting that this little motherboard has a full-size PCI Express here. Fitting something inside this case that would actually go into this PCI slot is nearly impossible, so you would actually have to literally drill a hole on the side panel there. But some people do it—you know, if you go to Phil’s Computer Labs, you can actually see some of that being done.

Like I said, this is a Via chipset as well, and the nice thing about this one is that it also supports Sound Blaster emulation in pure DOS, which is kind of cool. You can plug in an IDE SSD here—this is an IDE interface like the ones that you would find in an old laptop that has an IDE hard drive. In this case, there’s a small module with 8 gigs of space, which is pretty much all you need for a lot of Windows 98 things unless you’re trying to store a dozen games.

Let me go up here to the operating system and show you how this thing works. Actually, before I do that, one of the things that you’ll see in some of these guys is that there is no PS/2 port. I have had really good success with these USB to PS/2 adapters, and they work pretty well because Windows 98 doesn’t always detect USB devices and you’ll get stuck with a prompt and no way to hit Enter. So sometimes using one of these adapters helps. I’ll put a link in the description for these guys if in case you want to get one from my Amazon store—they’re really useful to have on your workbench.

Alright, so here we are. I have Windows 98 SE and it’s got the Plus theme going on here. You can see here it’s got some interesting stuff going on in terms of themes and colors. You can go to Properties here, and I think Appearance—oh my God, I forgot all about this! I think you go to Themes in Control Panel. It’s the Microsoft Plus add-ons: Desktop Themes. You can select different views, so how about we go Underwater a little bit? Let’s do that. Oh, that is so cool! Maybe a little bit blue, but anyway, I wanted to show you that because I used to love that in Windows.

Alright, so now I’m going to show you a benchmark. Let me go to 3DMark 99, and I’m recording this in real time. We’re going to do a new 3DMark, and I’m just going to go through this and show you the performance that you get out of this. You see here you get like 14 frames per second at 800 by 600. I love watching these, and it turns out that a lot of these games don’t exist—this is just done for the 3D benchmark. These games never existed. They’re like first-person shooters, but they’re not based off of real games. They’re like a 3D rendering in real time, of course.

For a little thin client running ATI Rage, it’s not horrible, but I do see that it is a little bit choppy there. Let me skip forward to the results here. We get 1206 3D Marks and 6584 CPU 3D Marks. So yeah, it’s a performer. It doesn’t get 10,000 3D Marks, but it does get something.

Alright, so now I’m going to play—I guess what I can do here is show you some DOS games. I can show you Descent running. This is like the hardest game to get right. I have a special controller that was made for this game, but yeah, this thin client plays this perfectly fine.

[Descent gameplay with music and sound effects]

That’s Descent running in the little thin client with full music and some pretty good performance! Yeah, I’m gonna put the link to my eBay store in the description. I sell these guys, and they make pretty good Windows 98 and DOS machines. I recommend getting them if you get your hands on one, or you can just buy them directly from me. I usually have a few for sale on my eBay store.

Check out my other videos. I have some other stuff that is interesting with some other vintage computers and tech tips and things like that. I hope you enjoyed this. Let me know in the comments what you think, and until next time!