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Windows® NT supported more architectures in the past, but similar to Apple with their Mac, Windows® for PowerPC required an ARC BIOS in order to be booted (please note this doesn’t only concern this architecture).

Virtualization answers like this one are OK. The aim is to still be able to test the target with this compiler.

So how to boot windows NT 4.0 on a recent PowerPC compatible (by compatible, I mean with ISA; ram modules; graphics cards…) hardware ?

And please don’t close this question because of hardware difference. Everyting is backward compatible like with the x86 version; it just can’t take advantages of new features (and in fact I’m still a Win9x user).

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  • Downvotes ? Why ?.If you have source code written for the winapi, then using one of those outdated versions is the best way to run such programs on that hardware. Jul 3, 2015 at 20:21

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This is impossible.

Modern PowerPC computers use completely different hardware interfaces and a different bootloader. There is a collection of peripherals that Windows NT expects to be on every system, and if it doesn't support them it won't boot. In simple terms there aren't drivers.

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  • So what about things that don’t require ᴄᴘᴜ instruction emulation ? (I’m thinking to what is possible with modern ᴍɪᴘꜱ). Otherwise please note main blocking differences like disk with 4096 sector size is still not a huge problem. ᴀʀᴄ ʙɪᴏꜱ is the only problem here. Nov 29, 2015 at 13:17
  • @user2284570 This isn't about emulation. The OP wanted to know if he could install it on a physical machine, you can't because modern machines interface with hardware differently.
    – Mikhail
    Nov 30, 2015 at 1:19
  • I’m the ᴏᴘ. My only concern is to avoid translating ᴄᴘᴜ instructions into those of an another architecture because of the high processing cost. I even wrote “Virtualization answers like this one are OK. The aim is for still be able to test the target with this compiler.” Nov 30, 2015 at 9:17
  • @user2284570 thats great but thats not the question you asked.
    – Mikhail
    Nov 30, 2015 at 20:27
  • No, the arc bios requirement was present in the question since the beginning. Nov 30, 2015 at 20:43

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