virtualbox.org

Hello guys

I'm trying to run the IBM 4690 OS in Virtual box but no such luck.

I had an issue with PAE but that was easily fixed via the settings.

Now I'm hitting a hard stop with a message of: "Hardware does not support OS4690".

Anyone has ever successfully used this OS with Virtualbox?

Moving to other guest

VirtualBox simulates the peripheral hardware of a PC (everything except the CPU). If the target hardware of your IBM 4690 was not a PC then you won't be able to create a virtual version of it.

PC operating systems support a wide variety of hardware using native and non-native drivers. A quick Google tells me that this IBM OS is likely to be very hardware specialized.

Executive summary: no chance, unless you have the budget to write a bunch of simulations of the hardware found in a supported POS terminal.

Some information about running (parts of?) 4690 OS on VMware can be found here.

Thanks guys!

Looking into the VMware documentation but it seems to be targetting ESXi and not Fusion which I'm not super familiar with.

You should be able to test the linked recipe quite quickly in VirtualBox. The important feature seems to be to use the LSI Logic SCSI controller, and 2GB RAM. I'm not sure what kind of controller the CD drive has to be on - I believe IDE is your only practical option for that.

So here are the updates,
I was able to have the mounted ISO start on VMware.
Still no luck with Virtualbox, I tried what you mentioned, 2GB of RAM, 2 Processors, replaced the IDE by an LSI SCSI Controller with a 14GB HDD and a CD with the mounted ISO.
It loads and then hit that same "Hardware does not support OS4690" screen. I'll try tinkering some more.

Do you have "4690 OS V6R3 level 0CD0 or later"?

I have eng-4690osv6r3.iso which I believe is correct

I was able to get the 4690OS to install but it give a W502 error on cold boot. This means the OS can not find the NVRAM.
I noticed in the successful VMWARE install that there is a nvram item in the .vmx setup file "nvram = "4690_XX.XXXXXX_usa.nvram".
I think this is a custom term added to VMWARE to specifically support emulation of the IBM/Toshiba hardware NVRAM feature.

To get the 4690 OS to install in VirtualBox you need to run the following commands on the OS command line:
C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBoxVBoxManage setextradata "4690_XX.XXXXXX_usa" "VBoxInternal/Devices/pcbios/0/Config/DmiSystemVendor" "Toshiba"
C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBoxVBoxManage setextradata "4690_XX.XXXXXX_usa" "VBoxInternal/Devices/pcbios/0/Config/DmiSystemProduct" "Tosiba GCM"

If your 4690 OS iso is more than 3 years old change "Toshiba" to "IBM".
Again, this will get you installed but not running.

Anyone know where to find an ISO for 4690 O's with the supermarket application?

Nobody here can answer that question unless you can show there are no copyright issues. You should really ask IBM about the availability of their software, then there can be no legal concerns.