TUHS February 2020

tuhs@tuhs.org

77 participants
39 discussions

Re: [TUHS] Bitsavers' RT/PC, AIX, AOS, etc. recent additions

by Jason Stevens

I was more interested in the "Mach" kernel itself as I've only recently been able to get it to boot up from sources for the i386. I hadn't looked into the other aos/vrm stuff. But that is interesting, a 4.3 with the vfs. In hind sight maybe Mach wasn't so bad with its messaging and threads, along with multiprocessor support.. Its what we all were eventually desiring anyway. One thing is for sure, multiple GHz machines sure make it a lot easier to use, these days. I'd gotten lucky with Mach as the platform code is really modular and even a monkey like me banging on a keyboard of an existing Mach 386 machine was able to get the latter source running under the older platform code. Shame Mach 3 seems to have broken all the fun stuff or requires real effort and understanding... Things I lack. But I was really surprised about the coprocessor cards.. I wonder what other interesting things are in there. Or how hard it is to hammer 386 BSD into aos "sort of a 4.3 Tahoe ++" From: Kevin Bowling <kevin.bowling(a)kev009.com> Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2020, 9:02 p.m. To: Jason Stevens Cc: Charles H Sauer; TUHS Subject: Re: [TUHS] Bitsavers' RT/PC, AIX, AOS, etc. recent additions Thanks for clarifying. I will reassert that the three pieces of systems software I mentioned (VRM, AIX2, AOS) are not Mach in any way I know about. AOS may have some generic cross pollination, it’d be whatever was going on at CSRG also for non-RT (4.2-4.3?) BSD platforms at the time of checkout. Kirk or Warner may be able to elucidate if provided the date and some reference material from AOS or I can do some original research. Most distinctly and important: VRM is not in any way Mach, it was its own bespoke microkernel. The microkernel would have been the most “Mach” part of Mach research, so this makes the VRM concept even more unique and enjoyable to me being so different and ambitious. Therefore I don’t think it is particularly correct to say any of VRM, AIX, AOS software is Mach without its ukernel. What you linked is a very late port (late 1990s) of a hybrid of 4.3 and 4.4 BSD (late meaning in the time when Net, Free, and Open had long taken over from CSRG BSD). I will quote a Twitter communication I had with Miod Vallat in the past:“Also it's not really 4.4. It's a mix of 4.3BSD-Reno plus the 4.4 VFS layer and new system calls. It still uses the 4.3, pre-Mach, VM system, hence no mmap(2).” What Miod means by “pre-Mach” above: 4.4 BSD adopted the kernel memory subsystem of Mach into the existing BSD monolithic kernel. Not any of the ukernel or things like Mach IPC. Not trying to be overly pedantic with you just trying to keep the records straight since these machines are one of my keen interests and I welcome new information on them. Regards,Kevin On Tue, Feb 18, 2020 at 5:30 AM Jason Stevens <jsteve(a)superglobalmegacorp.com> wrote: Oh sure! I'm having to use my phone... It's the combined sources here:http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/bits/IBM/RT/rt_bsd44/ doc mk jsteve@localhost:~/rt_bsd4/src/sys/.local/mach2.4$ pwd /home/jsteve/rt_bsd4/src/sys/.local/mach2.4 jsteve@localhost:~/rt_bsd4/src/sys/.local/mach2.4/mk/conf$ cat vers*6951X So 5.1x edit 69 jsteve@localhost:~/rt_bsd4/src/sys/.local/mach2.4/mk$ more CHANGELOGHISTORY 17-May-88 David Golub (dbg) at Carnegie-Mellon University XM21: David Black completely rewrote the accurate timing code (which is now implemented on all machines) and the priority and scheduling algorithms. The system now correctly reports cpu_usage per thread. The all file has this before i386 was added. So it's an older v2 than what is on the CSRG CD, but not as old as the VAX '86 stuff. It seems to be March 11 1989, although that could be when this was either archived or ported.. I guess they didn't exactly sync to a public kernel tree all that often. On Tue, Feb 18, 2020 at 4:05 PM +0800, "Kevin Bowling" <kevin.bowling(a)kev009.com> wrote: I’m asking exactly where the Mach is in the linked archive. VRM, AIX or AOS? Can you support this with a reference for my own documentation On Tue, Feb 18, 2020 at 1:02 AM Jason Stevens <jsteve(a)superglobalmegacorp.com> wrote: It's the CMU micro kernel. The hybrid "2.6" lived on in NeXTSTEP, and OPENSTEP, with various upgrades to bring it up to OS X. The RT as I understand it was a research machine, hence the BSD ports, and Mach port. What is interesting the more I dig around is that there was ROMP coprocoessor cards, and an OS/2 and DOS monitor program to let you boot BSD on the card. Peripheral IO was done on the x86 side. If RT's are rare, I can't imagine how impossible it would be to get one of those cards! The BSD assembler and linker source is in the archives too, no doubt it'll help someone make a RT emulator. Get Outlook for Android On Tue, Feb 18, 2020 at 12:54 PM +0800, "Kevin Bowling" <kevin.bowling(a)kev009.com> wrote: Can you clarify what is Mach in this archive if I have a gap in my knowledge? I didn’t know the VRM had any direct relationship to Mach Regards,Kevin On Mon, Feb 17, 2020 at 9:43 PM Jason Stevens <jsteve(a)superglobalmegacorp.com> wrote: Interesting stuff! And another version of Mach is buried in there. So the 4 csrg cd set may have updates to the romp support as it's an older version of the 5.1 kernel from 89... Not that think there is any Mach romp users. Get Outlook for Android From: TUHS <tuhs-bounces(a)minnie.tuhs.org> on behalf of Charles H Sauer <sauer(a)technologists.com> Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2020, 5:51 a.m. To: TUHS Subject: [TUHS] Bitsavers' RT/PC, AIX, AOS, etc. recent additions The Bitsavers' RSS feed (http://user.xmission.com/~legalize/vintage/bitsavers-bits.xml) seemed to me to be dominated by RT, AIX, AOS (BSD for RT), etc. stuff in the last week or so. I've only sampled a few items, but discovered a few things that I should have known (or knew and forgot?) while I was at IBM. http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/pc/rt/ -- voice: +1.512.784.7526 e-mail: sauer(a)technologists.com fax: +1.512.346.5240 Web: https://technologists.com/sauer/ Facebook/Google/Skype/Twitter: CharlesHSauer

4 years, 10 months

Who is the inventor of email?

by Ed Carp

I've noticed that some guy named Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai is all over Twitter, claiming that he is the inventor of email. He doesn't look like he's nearly old enough. I thought it was Ray Tomlinson. Looks like he's trying to create some press for his Senate run. Anyone older that me here that can either confirm or deny? Thanks!

4 years, 10 months

Bitsavers' RT/PC, AIX, AOS, etc. recent additions

by Charles H Sauer

The Bitsavers' RSS feed (http://user.xmission.com/~legalize/vintage/bitsavers-bits.xml) seemed to me to be dominated by RT, AIX, AOS (BSD for RT), etc. stuff in the last week or so. I've only sampled a few items, but discovered a few things that I should have known (or knew and forgot?) while I was at IBM. http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/pc/rt/ -- voice: +1.512.784.7526 e-mail: sauer(a)technologists.com fax: +1.512.346.5240 Web: https://technologists.com/sauer/ Facebook/Google/Skype/Twitter: CharlesHSauer

4 years, 10 months

Re: [TUHS] Bitsavers' RT/PC, AIX, AOS, etc. recent additions

by Jason Stevens

Interesting stuff! And another version of Mach is buried in there. So the 4 csrg cd set may have updates to the romp support as it's an older version of the 5.1 kernel from 89... Not that think there is any Mach romp users. Get Outlook for Android From: TUHS <tuhs-bounces(a)minnie.tuhs.org> on behalf of Charles H Sauer <sauer(a)technologists.com> Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2020, 5:51 a.m. To: TUHS Subject: [TUHS] Bitsavers' RT/PC, AIX, AOS, etc. recent additions The Bitsavers' RSS feed (http://user.xmission.com/~legalize/vintage/bitsavers-bits.xml) seemed to me to be dominated by RT, AIX, AOS (BSD for RT), etc. stuff in the last week or so. I've only sampled a few items, but discovered a few things that I should have known (or knew and forgot?) while I was at IBM. http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/pc/rt/ -- voice: +1.512.784.7526 e-mail: sauer(a)technologists.com fax: +1.512.346.5240 Web: https://technologists.com/sauer/ Facebook/Google/Skype/Twitter: CharlesHSauer

4 years, 10 months

Oral history interview with Doug McIlroy

by David C. Brock

With Doug’s permission, I’d like to bring the group’s attention to a recent oral history with him by the Computer History Museum. You can find the records for the two interviews here, and in them the links to the PDF transcripts: https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/oralhistories/?s=mcilroy As I am sure you can imagine, it was a great pleasure to interview Doug. I learned a tremendous amount. Best wishes, David .............. David C. Brock Director and Curator Software History Center Computer History Museum computerhistory.org/softwarehistory<http://computerhistory.org/softwarehistory> Email: dbrock(a)computerhistory.org Twitter: @dcbrock Skype: dcbrock 1401 N. Shoreline Blvd. Mountain View, CA 94943 (650) 810-1010 main (650) 810-1886 direct Pronouns: he, him, his

4 years, 10 months

Literate programmin

by Doug McIlroy

Apropos of Knuth and me, may I immodestly point to https://comic.browserling.com/tag/knuth The second likeness of Don is quite good. And the screen almost justifies posting to tuhs. Doug

4 years, 10 months

Re: [TUHS] man Macro Package and pdfmark

by Don Hopkins

Arnold wrote: > Well said. The markup language was clearly inspired by Scribe, which > was quite popular in Academia (at least) at the time. > > As a *markup language*, I personally find it superior to anything > else currently in use, but that's a whole different discussion that > on TUHS inevitably degenerates into the current spate of ranting, > so I won't start on it. So in other words, you mean: @Flame(Off) -Don

4 years, 10 months

SUN-2 emulator

by Jason Stevens

While messing around with the '87 release of GCC, I was going through the steps of setting up TME, and I stumbled across this derived emulator that is incredibly simple to setup and run, unlike TME: https://github.com/lisper/emulator-sun-2 Additional patches adding a BPF backend Ethernet adapter is here: https://github.com/sigurbjornl The program itself is only slightly C++ with a few variables being declared inline which was trivial to move to section starting to get it to compile with a picky C compiler (Microsoft C). The IO is SDL based, so making an x86/ARM win32 was really trivial. Anyway for all the SunOS enthusiasts I figured that you would love to give this one a shot! For Windows users, or anyone wanting to just run it on some unsuspecting normies I put Win32 x86 binaries here: https://sourceforge.net/projects/bsd42/files/4BSD%20under%20Windows/v0.4/SU… I have to wonder how impossible it would be to integrate it into SIMH...

4 years, 10 months

Re: [TUHS] man Macro Package and pdfmark

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Jon Steinhart > When you're looking for the documentation for pdf2svg, for example, and > there is no man page, how long does it take to figure out that there is > no documentation at all? I am _sooo_ tempted to say 'What do you think source is for?' :-) Noel

4 years, 10 months

TUHS Digest, Vol 51, Issue 18

by Paul Ruizendaal

> maybe if interest, i have a copy of an article by sandy fraser, “early experiments with time division networks” from ieee networks, jan 1993, pp12-26. > > this is a high level paper and describes spider, datakit, incon. > > it may have little new but i felt it had a lot of good background and a useful references list. > > i am wary of scanning it as its the ieee... > > -Steve Many thanks for the suggestion! Just the other day I bought another Fraser paper on IEEE, "Towards a Universal Data Transport System” from 1983, which is also a high level descriptive overview. A few people have responded off list and will be looking through their archives for relevant papers.

4 years, 10 months

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TUHS February 2020