20 Dec
2022
20 Dec
'22
5:57 p.m.
On Tue, 20 Dec 2022 at 09:31, Andrew Warkentin <andreww591(a)gmail.com> wrote:
QNX Classic and 4.x only ran on x86 machines, most of
which were
either standard PCs or at least sort of PC-like (although AFAIK the
ability to run without a BIOS was present very early on). It was quite
common to run QNX on desktops as a development host for embedded
systems AFAIK.
GUIs for QNX predate the Amiga deal, and have existed since the late
80s. The original was QNX Windows, which was either a reimplementation
or port (not quite sure which) of Open Look on a custom non-X11 window
server, running on later versions of 2.x and all versions of 4.x.
Later versions of 4.x added Photon 1, which looks like a cross between
Motif and Windows 9x, again based on a custom window server (this time
with a rather unconventional multi-process architecture). The 90s-era
demo disk was based on 4.25 and Photon 1 (there was also a 2.x demo
disk back in the 80s but this didn't have a GUI).
Fascinating. Thanks for setting the record straight, and I apologise
for my inaccurate speculation.
6.0 came with Photon 2, which is still Win9x-ish in terms of
organization and is a fairly straightforward evolution of Photon 1,
although the widgets look very vaguely Amiga-like in 6.0-6.2. 6.0 came
out slightly after the Amiga deal, so that might be the reason for the
Amiga-like theming.
Neutrino was not the name of a GUI, but rather of the entire OS that
succeeded QNX 4 (the first versions of Neutrino used Photon 1 but were
incapable of self-hosting and were developed alongside 4.x; 6.0 was
the first mainline QNX version to be Neutrino-based).
Aha!
There were also the i-Opener (running 4.25) and Audrey
(running 6.0)
internet appliances of the late 90s.
I did not realise they were QNX devices. I vaguely thought the 3Com
Audrey was based on BeIA, in fact, but I must be confusing it with
something else -- perhaps the Sony eVilla.
--
Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
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