Preserving RISC iX?
Eric Rucker
the handling of installation media for RISC iX - and who would back up
a clean system immediately after install to save it, back when it was
actually around?
So, how about preserving RISC iX?
Any RISC iX related media would be a good thing to preserve. This not
only includes things like restore disks and installation tapes, but
also documentation, and even advertising material. Source code would
be even better, if it hasn't been lost.
Legality could be a concern, although I suspect that whoever holds the
rights wouldn't ever have any interest in marketing the software, and
could be worked with to obtain the rights.
While RISC iX isn't very useful in 2009, it's still a historical
curiosity, and should be preserved, IMO.
I'm not in the UK, and have never owned a RISC iX system (or any Acorn
other than my StrongARM RISC PC that I got a few months ago,) so I
don't really have the knowledge necessary to know where to look, so
I'm mainly throwing this out there as a thought.
However, Googling has led me to Microcare Systems Ltd. as probably
being the successor to Granada Microcare, the company that performed
maintenance on RISC iX systems. Their website is
http://www.microcare-systems.co.uk/index.html. They don't mention much
about legacy support, so I doubt they'll be of much help, but it's
worth a shot at contacting them.
That said, Granada Microcare likely wouldn't have had any rights to
the OS other than to install it for users with a support contract.
Beyond that, finding out who actually owns the rights could be a very,
very messy process, as everything I see indicates RISC iX was dropped
by Acorn circa 1992, and who knows where it ended up after that?
Theo Markettos
> So, how about preserving RISC iX?
Sounds like a good plan.
> Any RISC iX related media would be a good thing to preserve. This not
> only includes things like restore disks and installation tapes, but
> also documentation, and even advertising material. Source code would
> be even better, if it hasn't been lost.
I think you also might have to preserve installed images (with all the cruft
that comes with them), as I doubt there are few copies of install tapes
around.
> Legality could be a concern, although I suspect that whoever holds the
> rights wouldn't ever have any interest in marketing the software, and
> could be worked with to obtain the rights.
I suspect so.
> That said, Granada Microcare likely wouldn't have had any rights to
> the OS other than to install it for users with a support contract.
But they might have tapes.
> Beyond that, finding out who actually owns the rights could be a very,
> very messy process, as everything I see indicates RISC iX was dropped
> by Acorn circa 1992, and who knows where it ended up after that?
I don't know of Acorn selling off any rights, and if they didn't go to Pace
or Element 14 presumably they would have ended up at Morgan Stanley Dean
Witter. Who I somehow doubt care.
But Acorn only ported AT&T (?)'s BSD code under licence, so most of the
rights would remain with them. AT&T Unix Systems Laboratories was sold to
Novell, and then that business sold on to SCO. So presumably they still
hold the rights.
Theo
Paul Stewart
Theo Markettos <theom...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>> Beyond that, finding out who actually owns the rights could be a very,
>> very messy process, as everything I see indicates RISC iX was dropped
>> by Acorn circa 1992, and who knows where it ended up after that?
> I don't know of Acorn selling off any rights, and if they didn't go to Pace
> or Element 14 presumably they would have ended up at Morgan Stanley Dean
> Witter. Who I somehow doubt care.
> But Acorn only ported AT&T (?)'s BSD code under licence, so most of the
> rights would remain with them. AT&T Unix Systems Laboratories was sold to
> Novell, and then that business sold on to SCO. So presumably they still
> hold the rights.
However during the last few years there has been a legal spat, SCO
versus Novel/IBM court battle. Novell claim they never sold the the
UNIX IPR, therefore you'll prob need to contact Novell, rather than
SCO, or wait for the outcome of the appeals process.
Regards
--
Paul Stewart - Far Bletchley, Milton Keynes, England.
(msn:pauls...@phawfaux.co.uk)
Eric Rucker
wrote:
> I think you also might have to preserve installed images (with all the cruft
> that comes with them), as I doubt there are few copies of install tapes
> around.
This is true, at least at first.
> > That said, Granada Microcare likely wouldn't have had any rights to
> > the OS other than to install it for users with a support contract.
>
> But they might have tapes.
If they're willing to give them to such a project... as they're a
business, they may be less willing to take such risks as giving away
software that they're not licensed to give away. Of course, there are
ways around that (ranging from their technician "forgetting" to take
the tape back, to using a modified SCSI card that has a sniffer
installed to sniff every SCSI packet coming from their tape drive,)
but they're less than legal.
> But Acorn only ported AT&T (?)'s BSD code under licence, so most of the
> rights would remain with them. AT&T Unix Systems Laboratories was sold to
> Novell, and then that business sold on to SCO. So presumably they still
> hold the rights.
Except Novell only sold SCO a license, and Novell kept the rights to
Unix. I believe Novell won that case against SCO, too.
SCO would care about such a project (they look for an excuse to sue
anyone they can, as their business model is to sue their customers,)
Novell would probably not care, or would even be helpful.
However, it does depend on which version of 4.3BSD was used to develop
RISC iX.
If it was 386BSD, then Acorn had all rights, as that was completely
open.
AFAICT, other versions would have some AT&T code, and therefore would
require Novell's permission to be legal. And, IIRC, there was a press
release saying that RISC iX had System V extensions, meaning it's got
at least some AT&T code.
Paul Stewart
ps.com>
Eric Rucker <bhto...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> But Acorn only ported AT&T (?)'s BSD code under licence, so most of the
>> rights would remain with them. �AT&T Unix Systems Laboratories was sold to
>> Novell, and then that business sold on to SCO. �So presumably they still
>> hold the rights.
> Except Novell only sold SCO a license, and Novell kept the rights to
> Unix. I believe Novell won that case against SCO, too.
They won the case yes, but then SCO has appealled and the I believe
Novell's victory is now in doubt. Novell has now asked the Supreme
Court to intervene to end the ongoing legal tussle between SCO and
Novell and who owns Unix and Unixware. See
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/28/novell_sc0_case_supremes/ for
more info.
Eric Rucker
> They won the case yes, but then SCO has appealled and the I believe
> Novell's victory is now in doubt. Novell has now asked the Supreme
> Court to intervene to end the ongoing legal tussle between SCO and
> Novell and who owns Unix and Unixware. Seehttp://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/28/novell_sc0_case_supremes/for
> more info.
Ugh. This, of course, is assuming that SCO has enough money to keep
the suits going. ;)
Theo Markettos
> However, it does depend on which version of 4.3BSD was used to develop
> RISC iX.
>
> If it was 386BSD, then Acorn had all rights, as that was completely
> open.
>
> AFAICT, other versions would have some AT&T code, and therefore would
> require Novell's permission to be legal. And, IIRC, there was a press
> release saying that RISC iX had System V extensions, meaning it's got
> at least some AT&T code.
Argh, wrote a long post on this and then hit the wrong key and lost it.
Briefly, have a look here:
http://www.levenez.com/unix/
That suggests a chronology:
4.3BSD Tahoe (1988)
begat
BSD Net/1 (1988)
begat
Acorn RISC iX (1989)
begat
Acorn RISC iX 1.21 (1991)
but also
UNIX System V Release 2 (1984-)
begat
Acorn RISC Unix (1988)
Make of that what you will. BSD Net/1 is under the BSD licence, SysVr2 is
under the AT&T licence. Whether that chart is accurate is another question.
Theo
Eric Rucker
> the RISC iX User Guide says: "RISC iX is a port to the ARM processor of the
> Berkeley 4.3 UNIX operating system (4.3BSD) with SVID extensions, Network
> File System (NFS) software, the X Window System and window managers".
>
> So Sun?oracle probably also own a bit of RISCiX,
Although I'm fairly sure that code is now open sourced under
OpenSolaris...
Ahh, Unix legality. So confusing. :)
Peter Howkins
> It seems to me that RISC iX has essentially died off, partially due to
> the handling of installation media for RISC iX - and who would back up
> a clean system immediately after install to save it, back when it was
> actually around?
>
> So, how about preserving RISC iX?
>
> Any RISC iX related media would be a good thing to preserve. This not
> only includes things like restore disks and installation tapes, but
> also documentation, and even advertising material. Source code would
> be even better, if it hasn't been lost.
I have copies of the following R140 manuals
Risc iX User Guide
Risc iX Operations Manual
Risc iX iXi.desktop Manual
I'll check into the logistics of scanning them.
> Legality could be a concern, although I suspect that whoever holds the
> rights wouldn't ever have any interest in marketing the software, and
> could be worked with to obtain the rights.
Ignore this to start off with, better to have gathered the information
and someone to say no (with the possibility of convincing them later),
than asking now, them saying no, and more data being lost of the
ravages of time.
> While RISC iX isn't very useful in 2009, it's still a historical
> curiosity, and should be preserved, IMO.
As for backing up a running Risc iX machine, slap the SCSI
drive (R260) into a Linux box with a SCSI card and 'dd' the whole
drive image off. This will get Risc iX partition and the RISC OS
partition on the front with the loader on. This is enough to copy
back onto other HDs to get real machines working again and
*maybe* enough to get it working with Arcem [1].
As for the ST506 drives in R140's, I suggest sticking an IDE
podule in the machine and writing a low level program to
write the ST506 image to a file on the IDE.
Peter
[1] Assuming someone wishes to write the SCSI podule code.
John Kenyon
The Linux + dd solution would also work for the ST506 drives, provided
you could find a PC with an ISA slot and a suitable XT hard disc
adaptor card. (I used it to recover the data off a ST238R hanging off
an ST11R adaptor card).
/jk
Theo Markettos
> What we need is a working R140/R260 to backup the HD from, but who as got
> one?
Will this do? Particularly 'hopside_root.tar.bz2', which is a backup of the
root filesystem:
http://www.jfc.org.uk/files/riscix/
It appears to have all the files, though you'd have to use the floppies to
restore a base image then use NFS to unpack the tar. Fancy having a go on
your R260?
(The source machine appears to have been at either ncl.ac.uk or york.ac.uk.
If you unpack it on a Unix machine, watch for symlinks to things like
/usr/bin on your local machine. I was thinking RISC iX was quite advanced
for a second ;-)
Theo
Dominic Holton
"Theo Markettos" <theom...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote in message
news:Miv*1a...@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk...
You could also try the following:
http://grope.thruhere.net/Qube/qubeftp.html
Home /System/OS-Other/UNIXish/RiscIX/RISCiX.tar.gz
http://grope.thruhere.net/Qube/qubeftp.php?dir=%2FSystem%2FOS-Other%2FUNIXish%2FRiscIX
Not used or tried it myself but having downloaded, it seems the files in the
archive are viewable...
Regards,
Dominic
Jonathan Graham Harston
> I'll check into the logistics of scanning them.
> > Legality could be a concern, although I suspect that whoever holds the
>
> and someone to say no (with the possibility of convincing them later),
explicitly allows duplication, preservation and reconstruction for
archival purposes. What you then do with that archival copy is
subject to other issues.
[1] Something like Part II Paragraph 49
--
J.G.Harston - j...@arcade.demon.co.uk - mdfs.net/User/JGH
Whitby Yards Gazetteer - http://mdfs.net/Docs/Books/YofWhitby/Gazetteer
Andrew Wickham
John Kenyon <etl...@gmx.net> wrote:
>
>The Linux + dd solution would also work for the ST506 drives, provided
>you could find a PC with an ISA slot and a suitable XT hard disc
>adaptor card. (I used it to recover the data off a ST238R hanging off
>an ST11R adaptor card).
>
>/jk
or an ST506 podule in an A5000 or RiscPC running ARMLinux
or an ST506 podule in a RISC iX machine!
I do have a set of floppies to install a base system 1.13 or 1.15 onto
an R140, plus various application installation discs. But after 5
years I've not got as far as taking disc images!
Rgds,
Andrew
Andrew Wickham
Theo Markettos <theom...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
there was a larger RISC iX image online - genesis.edu.au or similar
but I think it disappeared a while ago. Might be available through
archive.org though. Or Alan Williams might be persuaded to host it
somewhere else.
Rgds,
Andrew
Justin Stringfellow
> What we need is a working R140/R260 to backup the HD from, but who as got
> one?
Yep, I've got a R260 in perfect working order with the original RiscIX 1.2 install, and I cloned the root disk successfully a few
years back onto an external disc pack. I can't remember offhand exactly how I did it..
I've been thinking about selling it for a while, so if anyone fancies it I'm open to offers, or I can loan it if someone just wants
to fiddle. Not too keen on shipping it, I've had computers smashed in the mail before, so it's collection, and I'm in Dorset.
James Holtom
wrote:
Probably 'dd' -- it's how I transferred off the original disc, onto a
'new' disc, erm about 9 years ago!
I've got a SCSI-IDE adaptor, and an IDE-CF adaptor, waiting for me to
find the time to be bung them together, and transfer it all off that
disc onto a fairly long-term storage medium of flash...
Unfortunately the R260 is now doing the POST-blinking and refusing to
start :-(
James