ARMiX
Fraser C Moore
ARMiX - can anyone comment?
_ _
|-raser (_ |\/|oore Computer Science 2, Edinburgh University
............................................................................
`Kryten, unpack Rachel and get out the puncture repair kit!'
Olly Betts
>I've heard rumours of a (PD/shareware?) port of UNIX for Acorn machines called
>ARMiX - can anyone comment?
Here's something from the archbsd mailing list -- probably the lowest
volume mailing list in the world :)
======================================================================
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 1994 19:32:59 GMT
From: David Denholm <den...@sotona.phys.soton.ac.uk>
To: arch...@freefall.cdrom.com
Message-ID: <0097A80B.42...@sotona.physics.southampton.ac.uk>
Subject: FWD: Re: what is the state of ARMix
Sender: arch-bs...@freefall.cdrom.com
Precedence: bulk
>> Clearly, the arch-bsd discussions aren't being quite so lively! :-(
>perhaps we ought to change that...
This isn't really the place for this, since this is the bsd porting thingy,
but received this from (ex ?) co-ordinator of ARMix
I'll put the document I found [on mono, BTW] in /local/docs on
sotona.phys.soton.ac.uk
dd
-------------reply/preferred address may not work in JANET yet---------------
David Denholm 'official' : D.R.D...@soton.ac.uk
Physics dept. preferred : den...@sotona.physics.southampton.ac.uk
Southampton University Tel : (0703) 592104 (work) (0489) 583174 (home)
Southampton SO9 5NH Fax : (0703) 585813
> just found a document describing ARMix, a unix emulator (?) running over
> RISCOS. I was wondering what the status of this project is...
ARMix is on hold, probably indefinitely. It's about 60% complete. I've
been too busy the past 6 months to do anything with it.
>there is a project to port BSD to the archimedes, and I suggested that it could
>be implemented over RISCOS, but was flamed mercilessly - it sounds like you are
>are attempting what I was told was the impossible :-)
It's not at all impossible. But porting BSD is a big waste of time, IMO.
Looking at the situation now, the thing to do is port Mach over RiscOS
and wait for the GNU Hurd to come out then run that on top of it. That is,
if I cared, which I find it hard to do these days.
>I would be delighted to offer to help, but unfortunately have only 1Mb memory
>and RISCOS-2 [or is this the excuse I have been waiting for to upgrade..?]
Most of my ARMix work is applicable to porting Mach. Maybe I'll get
round to it someday. However, given the price of SGI Indy's (<5000 US$),
it's likely I'm going to be abandoning Acorn for good soon.
Frankly, the only thing that I like about Acorn's machines now is the
software and hardware that CC put out. If it wasn't for Color Cards,
Impression, and Artworks the architecture would be dead for me. I
stopped reading c.s.a a long time ago.
Sorry not to be more positive, but Acorn suck for lack of vision. Hell,
I'd buy a 3DO before a new Acorn machine.
-Huw
======================================================================
I think ARMix is a dead-end now.
Olly
--
And that's Ol if you're outside London.
James Woodman
ol...@mantis.co.uk (Olly Betts) writes:
>I think ARMix is a dead-end now.
I've just got hold of some old issues of RISC User (the first year's worth) and
there's a letter in one of them that asks "What happened to the much rumoured
about ARX?" The reply is "...it is believed that Acorn has scrapped ARC, a
UNIX look-alike...".
Does anyone know anything about this 'ARX'?
--
James
Andy Mell
: there's a letter in one of them that asks "What happened to the much rumoured
: about ARX?" The reply is "...it is believed that Acorn has scrapped ARC, a
: UNIX look-alike...".
: Does anyone know anything about this 'ARX'?
Surprising, unless the Risc User magazine you found that in was very old.
ARX was the precursor to Arthur and RISCOS as far as I know. It was an
ambitious pre-emptive multitasking OS. Before the Archimedes was released
in 1987 I think Acorn decided to scrap ARX and cobble together Arthur as
the release OS, (Arthur = ARx on THURsday??!), they then wrote RISCOS
which we all know and love.
I'm sure I've got something wrong in the above guess, but I'm sure some
kind soul at Acorn will put me right.
Andy
Nicko van Someren
> I've just got hold of some old issues of RISC User (the first year's worth) and
> there's a letter in one of them that asks "What happened to the much rumoured
> about ARX?" The reply is "...it is believed that Acorn has scrapped ARC, a
> UNIX look-alike...".
> Does anyone know anything about this 'ARX'?
That's going back a few years! ARX was a project carried out by
Acorn's research center in Palo Alto, California and was going to be
the main OS to be used on the ARM. It was being writen in Modula2 and
was a full preemptive multitasking OS. The Arthur OS was designed to
be a stop-gap while ARX was finnished. The collapse in Acorn's share
price, their withdrawal from the US market place and the costs incured
by the Electron not selling as well as hoped all conspired to kill of
the Acorn Research Center and the ARX project with it. This meant
that the stop-gap OS ended up being the one that carried on and was
developed into RISC OS.
Nicko
--
Nicko van Someren - ni...@aleph1.co.uk - Aleph One Ltd. Cambridge, England
Disclaimer: The opinions in this article are my own and are not necessarily
those of Aleph One Ltd.'s directors or employees.
"RISC OS: not a bad BIOS I guess"
Simon Glass
> be a stop-gap while ARX was finnished. The collapse in Acorn's share
> price, their withdrawal from the US market place and the costs incured
> by the Electron not selling as well as hoped all conspired to kill of
> the Acorn Research Center and the ARX project with it. This meant
> that the stop-gap OS ended up being the one that carried on and was
> developed into RISC OS.
Some might be glad about this. An OS written in Modula 2??? Ug.
> "RISC OS: not a bad BIOS I guess"
I always thought the B in BIOS stood for Bad or Backward. Now I'm not so
sure.
--
Simon
Sig line trunca
Andy Mell
: That's going back a few years! ARX was a project carried out by
: Acorn's research center in Palo Alto, California and was going to be
: the main OS to be used on the ARM. It was being writen in Modula2 and
: was a full preemptive multitasking OS.
I dont think the collapse of Acorn USA was mainly to blame for the failure
of ARX to reach our screens. There were some technical problems associated
with the early ARM hardware which prevented an efficient pre-emptive
multitasking implementation - I cannot for the life of me remember what they
were but John Bowler, when he was at Acorn, posted an article about the
problems they had with ARX. This was at some point in 1989/90 as far as I
recall but I cannot find the article or I would have reposted it.
Are there any archives of eunet.micro.acorn or maybe comp.sys.acorn that
go back as far as 5 years? :-)
Andy
Philip Hazel
|>
|> Some might be glad about this. An OS written in Modula 2??? Ug.
The Panos OS, which Acorn produced for the 32016 processors (Acorn
Cambridge Workstation and 2nd processor for Beeb), was a very nice
little OS indeed. It was written almost entirely in Modula 2.
--
Philip Hazel University Computing Service,
ph...@cus.cam.ac.uk New Museums Site, Cambridge CB2 3QG,
P.H...@ucs.cam.ac.uk England. Phone: +44 223 334714
Tony Sumner
>The Panos OS, which Acorn produced for the 32016 processors (Acorn
>Cambridge Workstation and 2nd processor for Beeb), was a very nice
>little OS indeed. It was written almost entirely in Modula 2.
It had a nice editor too.
Tony Sumner - Senior software QA engineer.
"The ears of the hidden rabbit are visible"
Enver Hoxha - Laying the foundations of the new Albania