TUHS

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6415 discussions

Re: [TUHS] Old 386 Unix Versions, was: Re: PCC for the i386

by Rudi Blom

>Does anyone have documentation or history for European efforts in the Unix-like operating systems? For example there was Bull’s Chorus which I seem to recall was based on Mach or a competing microkernel (it was a very long time ago and I used it for no mare than about two hours..). >I am rather saddened by the fact that there is so much about all the Unix (and not only >Unix) history of computing in the USA and so very little in Europe. I wouldn’t even know >where to start, to be honest, all I have as a history is the Italian side from my father and his other mad friends and colleagues in Milan. So little of it is recorded, never mind written down. In the 80-tisch I worked at Philips Data Systems in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands. Not in Development, but in System Support. Philips was working on a System V.3 based UNIX running on Motorola 68000 CPUs in a P9X00 server. Called MPX as in Multi-Processor UNIX. The Multi part refers to having an Ethernet, X25 and SDLC board running a tailored version of the OS to offload the main CPU. See for example https://www.cbronline.com/news/better_late_philips_enters_the_uk_unix_marke… https://www.cbronline.com/news/philips_ready_with_68030_models_for_its_p900… Later Philips moved to i386 with a 'unknown version' based UNIX. Division was bought by DEC (some say sold off by Philips) in 1991 and we moved to DEC's choice of SCO UNIX. The 'intelligent comm boards were ported and still running the separate OS though. Unfortunately I never had any of that OS type of source and my paper archive was left behind. Only have some small higher level test stuff and my mail archive. For a while I was "rudi blom" <blom(a)kiwi.idca.tds.philips.nl>, later rudi blom"@apd.mts

5 years, 6 months

European unix-like OS

by Steve Simon

Nearly all the unixes i used where from the US, but one stands out. I spent a week or two trying to get my head around Helios which was aimed at parallel systems (transputer). I believe it was French in origin, and wad unix-like at the command line but the shell supported mesh pipelines and other unique ideas. interesting but hard to manage.. -Steve

5 years, 6 months

Mach'86

by Jason Stevens

For anyone that is interested, there is 2 files on Kirk’s DVD that don’t appear on the CD’s mach.86-accent mach.86 The smaller mach.86-accent is a few months newer than the other, and is strictly the kernel. mach.86 contains stuff like the libraries for mach, bindings for pascal, along with an updated libc, and various binaries to run under 4.3BSD. It appears that the Mach project at that time was pretty much in step with the CSRG release. Speaking of pascal, the early version of MIG is actually written in pascal. There is quite a #ifdef ACCENT stuff in the code As well. So the bindings are more than something superficial. I had a major issue trying to use RA81 disks on SIMH, although switching to RP06’s seemed to have made things a little more stable, the larger issue seems to have been the async I/O code, and disabling that increased stability and reduced disk corruption greatly. Setting up the build involved copying files from the ‘cs’ directory to their respective homes, along with the ‘mach/bin/m*’ commands to the /bin directory. Configuring the kernel is very much like a standard BSD kernel config, however the directory needs to exist beforehand, and instead of the in path config command run the config command in the local directory. I have been able to self host a kernel, and build a good portion of world before I realized that the I/O was probably what I was Fighting and went back and restored the 4.3 tape back onto the HP’s and just re-built the kernel to verify it works. For those Wanting the command for SIMH it’s simply ‘set noasync’. The XU adapter worked out of the box with a simple: set xu ena att xu nat:tcp=42323:10.0.2.15:23 Which allowed me to telnet into the VAX, making things much easier than dealing with the console. While this kernel does have mentions of multi processor support I haven’t quite figured out what models (if any) are supported On the VAX, and if SIMH emulates them. While http://www.oboguev.net/vax_mp/ has a very interesting looking multiprocessor VAX Emulation it’s a fictional model based on the microvax, which I’m pretty sure 4.3BSD/Mach’86 is far too old for. And for those who like the gratuitious dmesg, this is a self hosted Mach build loading hp(0,0)boot Boot : hp(0,0)vmunix 393480+61408+138472 start 0x1fa5 Vax boot: memory from 0x92000 to 0x800000 Kernel virtual space from 0x80000000 to 0x82000000. Mach/4.3/2/1 #1: compiled in /usr/mk/MACH on wb2.cs.cmu.edu at Mon Oct 20 12:54:42 1986 physical memory = 8.00 megabytes. available memory = 5.86 megabytes. using 408 buffers containing 0.79 megabytes of memory VAX 11/780, serial#1234(0), hardware ECO level=7(0) mcr0 at tr1 mcr1 at tr2 uba0 at tr3 zs0 at uba0 csr 172520 vec 224, ipl 15 ts0 at zs0 slave 0 dz0 at uba0 csr 160100 vec 300, ipl 15 de0 at uba0 csr 174510 vec 120, ipl 15 de0: hardware address 08:00:2b:0d:d1:48 mba0 at tr8 hp0 at mba0 drive 0 hp1 at mba0 drive 1 hp2 at mba0 drive 2 hp3 at mba0 drive 7 Changing root device to hp0a I uploaded my SIMH config, along with the RP06 disk images here: https://sourceforge.net/projects/bsd42/files/4BSD%20under%20Windows/v0.4/Ma…

5 years, 6 months

Happy birthday, 386BSD!

by Dave Horsfall

386BSD was released on this day in 1992, when William and Lynne Jolitz started the Open Source movement; well, that's what my notes say, and corrections are welcome (I know that Gilmore likes to take credit for just about everything). -- Dave

5 years, 6 months

Unix 50th celebration

by Deborah Scherrer

Many, many thanks to Clem Cole for arranging the 50th Unix Anniversary celebration in Seattle last Wednesday. It was wonderful to see old friends again. Most of these folks are still out in the world sharing their brilliance in various computing facilities. Lots of very special people still doing wonderful work! Thanks, Clem, for the chance to meet up with them again! Deborah

5 years, 6 months

Another pioneer gone

by John P. Linderman

Fernando Corbato died last Friday. http://news.mit.edu/2019/mit-professor-emeritus-fernando-corby-corbato-comp…

5 years, 6 months

VMS / Unix and old CSRG paper

by Paul Ruizendaal

As the last week had a discussion on this list about various VMS+Unix projects from that era, maybe it is a good time to ask the below question again: For a while I have been searching for a 1982 tech report from CSRG: "TR/4 (Proposals for the Enhancement of Unix on the Vax)" This report later evolved into TR/5, the 4.2BSD manual, but I’m specifically looking for TR/4. The only reference that I have for TR/4 is contained in a 1982 discussion about VMS vs. Unix: https://tech-insider.org/vms/research/1982/0111.html (seek for message 5854 from Bill Mitchell). Clutching at straws here, but maybe a copy survived in a box with VMS+Unix materials. Wbr, Paul

5 years, 6 months

Turing to be on 50-pound note

by John P. Linderman

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/15/business/alan-turing-50-pound-note.html?…

5 years, 6 months

Re: [TUHS] Thanks for Virtuallyfun! (was Re: Happy birthday, 386BSD!)

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Adam Thornton > something designed for single-threaded composible text-filtering > operations is now running almost all of the world's multithreaded > user-facing graphical applications, but that's the vagaries of history > for you. It's a perfect example of my aphorism, "The hallmark of truly great architecture is not how well it does the things it was designed to do, but how well it does things it was never expected to handle." Noel

5 years, 6 months

Floppy to modern files for Usenet maps

by Mary Ann Horton Gmail

Hunting around through my ancient stuff today, I ran across a 5.25" floppy drive labeled as having old Usenet maps. These may have historical interest. First off, I don't recognize the handwriting on the disk. It's not mine. Does anyone recognize it? (pic attached) I dug out my AT&T 6300 (XT clone) from the garage and booted it up. The floppy reads just fine. It has files with .MAP extension, which are ASCII Usenet maps from 1980 to 1984, and some .BBM files which are ASCII Usenet backbone maps up to 1987. There is also a file whose extension is .GRF from 1983 which claims to be a graphical Usenet map. Does anyone have any idea what GRF is or what this map might be? I recall Brian Reid having a plotter-based Usenet geographic map in 84 or 85. I'd like to copy these files off for posterity. They read on DOS just fine. Is there a current best practice for copying off files? I would have guessed I'd need a to use the serial port, but my old PC has DOS 2.11 (not much serial copying software on it) and I don't have anything live with a serial port anymore. And it might not help with the GRF file. I took some photos of the screen with the earliest maps (the ones that fit on one screen.) So it's an option to type things in, at least for the early ASCII ones. Thanks, Mary Ann

5 years, 6 months

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