Amiga 3000UX first impressions
John B. Sobernheim
I have seen the light and it is called /usr/amiga/bin/fractal
We received a 3000UX the other day. As far as I know this is
a saleable unit (I am a dealer), one of the first. The following are my
impressions of the machine so far.
The Amiga 3000UX that we received is configured with 9 MB's of
RAM, 1MB of Chip and 8MB's of Fast (using 1mbitx4 zips). It has a
200MB Hard Drive. The Ethernet Board was also included and installed.
(From the brochure my dad got at Comdex, I had thought the Ethernet
board would be an optional pheripheral). It comes with three manuals;
Installing Amiga UNIX, Learning Amiga UNIX, and, Using Amiga UNIX.
Unix. There is a short command reference manual included. There is a
single page saying that this is a BETA release of the software and
manuals and that the user is eligible for a free upgrade to version 1.0
of the software and manuals (For a $50.00 media replacement/shipping and
handling charge :-). The version of Unix in this A3000UX was
BETA 3j. An errata page listing known bugs and problems was also
included. Finally, there were two 3.5" floppy disks (3000UX Boot & Root
File System) and an install tape cartridge as well as the standard Amiga
software and manuals. The system was preloaded with Unix. I set up the
system with a 1950 Color Monitor and the A2232 multiple serial port card.
By holding down both mouse buttons on boot, I was able to boot
into AmigaDos 1.3 and 2.0. The Work: partition was set up as a circa
21MB partition.
By rebooting the machine without holding down the mouse buttons, it
booted into Unix. (On the first boot, it went through a configuration
script asking about network setup, passwords, etc. I was absent through
this procedure). When it got to the login prompt, I logged in as root,
and used the SYSADM (Similar to FACE on 3.2x Unix) interface to add a
new user and home directory called tcr. It created a /home/tcr directory
and set up ksh as the default shell.
First thing I did, as tcr, was lock up the console :-). I tried,
and succeeded, to run Xwindows, but I forgot that I needed some sort
of interface to it, ie. Xterm, Open Look, etc. After TURNING OFF THE
POWER and going through a palm sweating fsck on reboot, I read the manual
a little and found that we have virtual terminals in Amiga Unix. If you
hit left-alternate-F1_through_F8, you can have eight (or ten, depending
on how you configure it) virtual terminals into Amiga Unix. When I locked
up the one virtual terminal by trying to run X, all I should of done was
log in under another virtual terminal (left-alt-F2) and kill the task.
Live and learn.
Shortly after this, I found (by reading the manual) a script called
oladduser which added all the stuff to my home directory and set up paths
to allow me to run Open Look. I got Open Look up and spent the rest of
the day, trying to get it up in more than one bit-plane. I was not
successful. (If anyone knows what I need to do please mail me!) A couple
of decent tech/unix guys came in and we all played with the machine some
more. I asked them about my problems with X and they said, "right" :-).
We found a neat thing in SysVR.4 where when doing a 'ls -al' it now
shows links in the format of file -> file. (file [is linked to] file).
There are a large number of man pages included in the installation, a
variety of games including nethack and adventure in /usr/games, amiga
specific files in /usr/amiga, troff, gcc and cc. The default $PATH
doesn't seem to include the users current directory, which is interesting.
(I think it has to do with /etc/profile and /usr/bin/ksh. ie. In /etc/
profile it says something like if shell is rsh or csh, do this, it doesn't
do it if shell is ksh. Anyway I haven't gotten around to checking that
out). I compiled hello.c with gcc and cc. A customer came in and we
stuck a #pragma in to see if gcc would try and invoke nethack or something,
it didn't appear to. Another customer found a man page for nawk (new Awk)
but couldn't find the program itself. There is a spreadsheet included in
the distribution. News software is included in the distribution, I didn't
check to see what other communications software was included... kermit,
umodem, etc.
We played around with tty monitors and servers and got a login prompt
out to a 2500 running vt100. My UnixPC, that's on the net, is all the way
on the other side of the store and I haven't gotten up on it yet. /etc/
inittab has entries for the built in serial port and the A2232 multiple
serial port card. The built in serial port is referred to as /dev/term/ser.
/etc/inittab also has entries for all of the virtual screens calling a
program called /usr/amiga/bin/getscr as the "getty".
All this time I hadn't seen a single color other than the standard
console screen of 640x200xblackxgold, the F2 - F8 Screens of varying
resolutions and colors (ie. F5 is 640x400xblackxwhite) and the Open Look
screen of 640x400xblackxwhite. A half hour after the store closed last
night I ran it... /usr/amiga/bin/fractal. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! It is
an Amiga. :-)
There is a device called /dev/amiga that let's the developer access
the Amiga's Hardware, I think.. the manual warns about it's usage however.
Anyway, I hope this serves to whet ya'lls collective appetites. Any
questions/problems I can help with, please mail me. If anyone would like,
I can post files like /etc/inittab, directories, etc.
--
John Sobernheim ...boulder!tcr!news || ne...@tcr.UUCP
The Computer Room ...CIS 76625,1210
Denver, Colorado ...But moma, that's where the fun is! (Manfred Man)
Willis F York
1) How much are these things? I hear $5000 (seems cheap)
2) exactly "what" are you supposed to do with UNIX?
ie. what's the "market", schools? CS majors?, busineses?
3) If i had one how many Dumb terminials could i hook up?
4) How UNIXish is it, does it turn ya amiga into a "Mini-frame"
5) Whens it comming out for my 500.... :^) (Kidding)
Sounds Cool, if i win the lottery tomorrow I'd buy one.
and a regular 3000 for a terminal!.
.
--
yo...@ecn.purdue.edu Willis F York
----------------------------------------------
Macintosh... Proof that a Person can use a Computer all day and still
not know ANYTHING about computers.
Ben Cox
> We found a neat thing in SysVR.4 where when doing a 'ls -al' it now
>shows links in the format of file -> file. (file [is linked to] file).
BSD does this for symbolic links; my guess is that that is one of the "new"
features of SVR4.
> Anyway, I hope this serves to whet ya'lls collective appetites. Any
>questions/problems I can help with, please mail me. If anyone would like,
>I can post files like /etc/inittab, directories, etc.
I wouldn't advise this... /etc/inittab is probably copyrighted, and so is
probably every other file on there that you didn't create yourself.
>--
>John Sobernheim ...boulder!tcr!news || ne...@tcr.UUCP
>The Computer Room ...CIS 76625,1210
>Denver, Colorado ...But moma, that's where the fun is! (Manfred Man)
--
Ben Cox
b...@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu
Cindy Walters
>
> I have seen the light and it is called /usr/amiga/bin/fractal
>
> We received a 3000UX the other day. As far as I know this is
>a saleable unit (I am a dealer), one of the first. The following are my
>impressions of the machine so far.
>
I have been contemplating the purchase of a home system that would allow
me to continue to work in a UNIX environment. I have an old (actually,
two ;-) Commodore 64 system with floppy disk drive and color monitor,
and I'm naturally wondering if any of this equipment can be used with an
Amiga UX - or if I have to completely replace with new equipment. Any
ideas? Is there any market for used Commodore 64 equipment (what about
for parts?) ?
> The Amiga 3000UX that we received is configured with 9 MB's of
>RAM, 1MB of Chip and 8MB's of Fast (using 1mbitx4 zips). It has a
>[...]
>single page saying that this is a BETA release of the software and
>manuals and that the user is eligible for a free upgrade to version 1.0
>of the software and manuals (For a $50.00 media replacement/shipping and
>handling charge :-). The version of Unix in this A3000UX was
>BETA 3j. An errata page listing known bugs and problems was also
>
Any indication about when the 'production' release can be expected?
You also mentioned that it came with spreadsheet software. I would
be very interested in knowing more about this - is it a LOTUS 1-2-3
look-alike? Is there good documentation? Does it work?
Thanks :-)
======================================================================
Cynthia M. Walters Internet: ci...@travis.csd.harris.com
Harris Computer Systems UUCP: ...!uunet!travis!cindy
2101 W. Cypress Creek Road --------------------------------------
Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33309-1892 | R e m a i n C a l m !!! |
Tel: (305) 973-5118 --------------------------------------
Fax: (305) 977-5580
=======================================================================
Richard Griffith
> > We found a neat thing in SysVR.4 where when doing a 'ls -al' it now
> >shows links in the format of file -> file. (file [is linked to] file).
>
> BSD does this for symbolic links; my guess is that that is one of the "new"
> features of SVR4.
>
better than that! SYSVR4 (according to AT&T), lets you create either SYSV
file partitions, OR BSD FFS partitions. Yes, those are called "Fast
File System" partitions (in this case, it has no reference to Amiga's FFS)
The BSD stuff is considerably faster than SYSV partitions.... Besides the
fact that you get 255 char filenames, soft links, hard links, etc.
(Try "mv" on a directory, I'd like to see if that works - It should... under
SYSVR3.x it doesn't!)
:Richard E. Griffith, "griff" : iNTEL, Hillsboro Ore.
:gr...@anvil.hf.intel.com
:SCA!: Cyrus Hammerhand, Household of the Golden Wolf, Dragons' Mist, An Tir
:These are MY opinions, if iNTEL wanted them, They'd pay for `em!
Guy Harris
>shows links in the format of file -> file. (file [is linked to] file).
What did you expect it to do? The "neat thing" isn't that "ls -al" does
something different, it's that S5R4 supports symbolic links; hard links
should be shown the way they always have been. (BSD shows symbolic
links the same way.)
John B. Sobernheim
> Sounds Cool, I just want to know a few "general" things.
>
> 1) How much are these things? I hear $5000 (seems cheap)
Based on my dealer cost and standard discount, I believe the retail price
to be $6995.00.
> 2) exactly "what" are you supposed to do with UNIX?
> ie. what's the "market", schools? CS majors?, busineses?
Unix doesn't define the application. The user defines the application.
Unix is a powerful, flexible, multi-user, multi-tasking operating system
with excellent communications and network support.
> 3) If i had one how many Dumb terminials could i hook up?
There is one RS-232 interface built into the A3000UX. The optional
A2232 Multiple Serial Interface Board provides seven additional interfaces.
Up to 4 A2232's could be installed in a 3000UX for a total of 29 RS-232
interfaces.
> 4) How UNIXish is it, does it turn ya amiga into a "Mini-frame"
This is Unix. A more interesting question might be how Amiga'ish is it.
> 5) Whens it comming out for my 500.... :^) (Kidding)
dunno :-) You could always get minix...
> yo...@ecn.purdue.edu Willis F York
> ----------------------------------------------
John B. Sobernheim
> > Anyway, I hope this serves to whet ya'lls collective appetites. Any
> >questions/problems I can help with, please mail me. If anyone would like,
> >I can post files like /etc/inittab, directories, etc.
>
> I wouldn't advise this... /etc/inittab is probably copyrighted, and so is
> probably every other file on there that you didn't create yourself.
tunable files/directory listings, but I guess a "better safe than sorry"
attitude is best here. Thanks for the info!
> --
> Ben Cox
> b...@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu
John B. Sobernheim
> In article <1...@tcr.UUCP> ne...@tcr.UUCP (John B. Sobernheim) writes:
> >
> > I have seen the light and it is called /usr/amiga/bin/fractal
> >
Cindy, no, not yet. I figure they are punching away as fast as they
can on the remaining problems. In the few days I've had to play with
the machine it does seem fairly stable, but I have seen some minor
problems with some of the programs, although, it may just be me and
user errors.
> You also mentioned that it came with spreadsheet software. I would
> be very interested in knowing more about this - is it a LOTUS 1-2-3
> look-alike? Is there good documentation? Does it work?
While it's not a Lotus look-alike, or work-alike, it does seem
to be fairly full-featured. There are about 15 pages of documentation
(man pages) for it, and from my quick browse through it, there seemed
to be a decent amount of functionality built in. It does work. :-)
Oh, and your C64 hardware with the possible exception of your monitor
will not work with the Amiga, I'm afraid.
> Cynthia M. Walters Internet: ci...@travis.csd.harris.com
Lars P. Fischer
John> I compiled hello.c with gcc and cc. A customer came in and we
John> stuck a #pragma in to see if gcc would try and invoke nethack or
John> something, it didn't appear to.
GCC stopped doing that a long time ago. They even have a few pragmas
of their own these days -- gues they found out pragmas weren't that
bad after all.
/Lars
--
Lars Fischer, fis...@iesd.auc.dk | Life is hard, and then you die.
CS Dept., Univ. of Aalborg, DENMARK. | - The Immaterial
David S. Masterson
Cindy> I work on UNIX systems and I have been contemplating the purchase of a
Cindy> home system that would allow me to continue to work in a UNIX
Cindy> environment. I have an old (actually, two ;-) Commodore 64 system with
Cindy> floppy disk drive and color monitor, and I'm naturally wondering if any
Cindy> of this equipment can be used with an Amiga UX - or if I have to
Cindy> completely replace with new equipment. Any ideas? Is there any market
Cindy> for used Commodore 64 equipment (what about for parts?)?
The short answer for the Commodore 64 equipment is that its probably not worth
keeping. Finding a market for it is not very likely, but you can always try
places like misc.marketplace.computers (I think that's the newsgroup).
The long answer is that an AmigaUX should be bootable under AmigaDOS and there
is a Commodore 64 emulator for AmigaDOS (ReadySoft software). The emulator is
pretty good, but by no means great. There is also an interface for hooking up
a 64 disk drive. Many pieces of 64 productivity software seem to work with
it, but most games have trouble (some work, some don't, some do and don't).
Disk copy protection (which most games have) is a little more than it can
handle. This emulator takes over the Amiga, worked with AmigaDOS 1.3 (don't
know about AmigaDOS 2.0), and operated at about 85%-90% speed (at best). For
trying to make two different architectures work together, it was a really good
effort (there were just limitations that had to be lived with).
--
====================================================================
David Masterson Consilium, Inc.
(415) 691-6311 640 Clyde Ct.
uunet!cimshop!davidm Mtn. View, CA 94043
====================================================================
"If someone thinks they know what I said, then I didn't say it!"
Guy Harris
>SYSVR3.x it doesn't!)
Given that S5R4 has a BSD-style "rename()" call, one would hope it
works; that presumes that AT&T fixed "mv" not to waste its time with
"/usr/lib/mv_dir" and just use "rename" to move stuff (including
directories).
Jim Burwell
>better than that! SYSVR4 (according to AT&T), lets you create either SYSV
>file partitions, OR BSD FFS partitions. Yes, those are called "Fast
>File System" partitions (in this case, it has no reference to Amiga's FFS)
>The BSD stuff is considerably faster than SYSV partitions.... Besides the
>fact that you get 255 char filenames, soft links, hard links, etc.
I've always wondered why someone hasn't ported Bezerkeley FFS over to
AmigaDOS. l:BerkeleyFFS would be nice. Then it wouldn't be too long
until someone ports fsck!
C'ya,
Jim
--
UUCP: ...!rutgers!faatcrl!jimb Internet: ji...@faatcrl.UUCP
Under brooding skys and watchful eyes
On convulsive seas of false urgency
We walk empty corridors in vain - "No Exit", Fate's Warning
Jason Goldberg
> Commodore is clearly avoiding telling us how much they plan to sell the
> machine for in this newsgroup. Someone asks Can it run on the 2500/020,
> how much it costs, and when it can be had. The response from CBM is
> that the 020 board was designed to allow unix to run. No response to the
> price or availability issue.
>
> The only thing I hear about is the 3000 and beta versions for developers.
> Nothing about whether you can get even a beta version for the 2500/020 or
> 2500/030.
It will run on both the 2500/030 and 2500/020, you will by able to buy it
for your existing machine. I think the CBM people on this group may not
know or may not be at liberty to say how much the software alone will cost.
As far as I know the software hasn't even been announced as an add on for
existing Amiga w/ MMU systems, so it is not unreasonable for a CBM employee
not to quote you a price. It is very possible that a price hasn't even
been set yet! I don't have a clue what they will charge for the software,
but I do know that the odds are it will be distributed via tape, so you
will need to own/rent/borrow a tape drive in order to purchase the
software.
-Jason-
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jason Goldberg UUCP: ucsd!serene!cbmami!jason
Del Mar, CA
Evan J Torrie
>In article <yorkw.6...@stable.ecn.purdue.edu>, yo...@stable.ecn.purdue.edu (Willis F York) writes:
>> Sounds Cool, I just want to know a few "general" things.
>>
>> 1) How much are these things? I hear $5000 (seems cheap)
>Based on my dealer cost and standard discount, I believe the retail price
>to be $6995.00.
Hmmm... so Byte was only $3000 and 75% out on their "around $4000" quote?
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Evan Torrie. Stanford University, Class of 199? tor...@cs.stanford.edu
Today's maxim: All socialists are failed capitalists
Mike Schwartz
Keith Gabryelski
(Mike Schwartz) writes:
>Commodore is clearly avoiding telling us how much they plan to sell
>the machine for in this newsgroup.
The reason you do not hear about pricing in this newsgroup is that the
people that are answering your technical questions and not involved
with such issues/decisions and thus are not qualified to answer such
questions.
I will bet if you ask a relatively technical question you will get a
quick and correct response.
>The only thing I hear about is the 3000 and beta versions for
>developers. Nothing about whether you can get even a beta version
>for the 2500/020 or 2500/030.
Several of our beta sites ARE running A2500 with either an 020 or an
030 board.
Pax, Keith
Bernd Felsche
>>(Try "mv" on a directory, I'd like to see if that works - It should... under
>>SYSVR3.x it doesn't!)
This did not work correctly and would cause a PANIC on "demand",
with the BSD derived SunOS I was working with a year back.
Naturally, this was discovered during a demo. It did not like to
move directories across mount point, when the pathname referred to
was a symbolic link to the destination.
Anybody want to try it on the 3000UX?!
>Given that S5R4 has a BSD-style "rename()" call, one would hope it
>works; that presumes that AT&T fixed "mv" not to waste its time with
>"/usr/lib/mv_dir" and just use "rename" to move stuff (including
>directories).
I only just found out about mv_dir a couple of days ago on a SVR3.2
system, when I had to umount /usr filesystem... YUCK! And I only
wanted to rename the directory.
--
______________________________Bernd_Felsche______________________________
Metapro Systems, 328 Albany Highway, Victoria Park Western Australia 6100
Phone: +61 9 362 9355 Fax: +61 9 472 3337 ber...@metapro.DIALix.oz.au
Thomas Cleland
>machine for in this newsgroup. Someone asks Can it run on the 2500/020,
>how much it costs, and when it can be had. The response from CBM is
>that the 020 board was designed to allow unix to run. No response to the
>price or availability issue.
>
the
the UniForum in a couple/few weeks (of the 3000UX, that is).
The price before that time would at best be unofficial, and thus
bad policy to state publicly. It would be kind of silly to
announce the announcement, kind of defeats the purpose.
--
// / Thom Cleland / It is easier /
// / tcle...@ucsd.edu / to get forgiveness /
\X/ / ASOCC * Amiga Users' Group at UCSD / than permission... /
\____________________________________\____________________/
Brett Bourbin
that we, the beta-testers and software development companies, could not
make public comments about it.
Is this no longer true?
--
-- __
Brett Bourbin \ / /(_ /\/ 11440 Commerce Park Drive
..!uunet!visix!brett \/ / __)/ /\ Reston, Virginia 22091
br...@visix.com Software Inc (703) 758-2733
Ethan Solomita
>It was my understanding that the A3000UX was still under beta-testing and
>that we, the beta-testers and software development companies, could not
>make public comments about it.
>
>Is this no longer true?
It has been available to all students, as well as
developers, for appr. 1 1/2 months. It has been described in many
ways, simply not officially announced. You are free to talk about
what it is in it NOW.
>
>--
>-- __
> Brett Bourbin \ / /(_ /\/ 11440 Commerce Park Drive
> ..!uunet!visix!brett \/ / __)/ /\ Reston, Virginia 22091
> br...@visix.com Software Inc (703) 758-2733
-- Ethan
"Don't forget the importance of the family. It begins
with the family. We're not going to redefine the family.
Everybody knows the definition of the family. ... A child. ... A
mother. ... A father. There are other arrangements of the family,
but that is a family and family values."
-- Dan Quayle, of course. Our beloved Vice President.
It's just too easy!
Keith Gabryelski
>Ok, if the machine and OS is now public, I guess I can comment for the
>software developers point-of-view.
The machine is not public.
>For a CISC processor version of UNIX which are suppose to be smaller
>than their RISC counterparts, AMIX seems to be alittle bloated. On a
>9Meg system (8 fast, 1 chip), the UNIX when booted only leaves me
>with alittle over 5Megs. This is before the X Window System.
This is with the kernel fully loaded with NFS, RFS, RPC, and several
other packages you may or may not use. A later release has kernel
linking options where you can add/remove packages at will.
>I don't know if I agree not to put color into the console X server.
>The reason I heard was about speed and I really don't fully believe
>it.
The fact is the console X server does not yet have color (well,
atleast not on the distribution). We are working on it. It will also
be slower. The U of Lowell board offers a nice alternative to native
color X server.
>The OPEN LOOK window manager has some problems with window placements. I
>don't think they are handling the USPosition and PPosition hints.
I've seen no bug reports from you on this. Please report this bug
however you have been asked to report such things or send them it to
bu...@amix.commodore.com or me directly.
>The X server has some major drawing problems if you interrupt it when it
>is at work using the window manager (dragging a window while it is being
>drawn).
This is fixed in the lastest release. Again I saw no bug report.
>I don't know what they are sync'ing the mouse pointer with for X, but it
>is very unstable. I will venture a guess that it is not a sprite. 8^)
The speed of the pointer is faster in the current release. An Amiga
sprite would not make a good pointer because it is low res. Sure,
there are tricks to make it look high res but you lose precision. I
agree the pointer could atleast be sync'd with beam. You are also able
to make suggestions through the bug report channels. I've seen none
on the mouse pointer.
>The good points are that it seems pretty complete as SVR4 goes. Besides
>a major bug in the socket library (recvfrom () call) and the X problems,
>it is pretty stable. NFS works like a charm, along with TCP/IP (this was
>not the case for the earlier beta versions back 2-3 months ago with kernel
>panics on NFS writes).
Again, I've seen no bug report of this recvfrom() problem. If it is
`major' problem I would think people would want us to fix it by
the release.
Pax, Keith
John B. Sobernheim
> >SYSVR3.x it doesn't!)
>
> Given that S5R4 has a BSD-style "rename()" call, one would hope it
> works; that presumes that AT&T fixed "mv" not to waste its time with
> "/usr/lib/mv_dir" and just use "rename" to move stuff (including
> directories).
see anything that looks like a "/usr/lib/mv_dir" either, so I figure
they are using "rename".
Brett Bourbin
software developers point-of-view.
For a CISC processor version of UNIX which are suppose to be smaller than
their RISC counterparts, AMIX seems to be alittle bloated. On a 9Meg
system (8 fast, 1 chip), the UNIX when booted only leaves me with alittle
over 5Megs. This is before the X Window System.
I don't know if I agree not to put color into the console X server. The
reason I heard was about speed and I really don't fully believe it.
The OPEN LOOK window manager has some problems with window placements. I
don't think they are handling the USPosition and PPosition hints.
The X server has some major drawing problems if you interrupt it when it
is at work using the window manager (dragging a window while it is being
drawn).
I don't know what they are sync'ing the mouse pointer with for X, but it
is very unstable. I will venture a guess that it is not a sprite. 8^)
The good points are that it seems pretty complete as SVR4 goes. Besides
a major bug in the socket library (recvfrom () call) and the X problems,
it is pretty stable. NFS works like a charm, along with TCP/IP (this was
not the case for the earlier beta versions back 2-3 months ago with kernel
panics on NFS writes).
BTW - I use the gcc complier on the system, and not the standard cc for it
gives my much tighter code.
Mike Ford Ditto
>software developers point-of-view.
Reminder: Everyone who currently has Unix on their Amiga has a
pre-release beta test version. Some of these people are beta testers
who received the software and/or hardware by special arrangement,
others are the lucky few who have managed to buy an A3000UX through a
special educational program (and some mysterious early dealer units).
I don't know what, if any, non-disclosure agreements any of these
people are bound to, so I have no complaints about posting "first
impressions," etc. However, I would like to make one request:
Please include the Amiga Unix version name/number, as in "Beta3j",
when you comment about the software. The output of "uname -rv" will
do nicely. The main reason for this at the moment is to remind
readers that it is BETA software that is being reviewed.
Also, when someone says,
> AMIX seems to be alittle bloated.
I would like to respond with an estimate of how much smaller the
system got between the version he has and the current one. But I
can't, not knowing what version was being described.
>I don't know if I agree not to put color into the console X server. The
>reason I heard was about speed and I really don't fully believe it.
The main reason is this: We got a single-bitplane version (much
easier to do than multi-bitplane) running on the native hardware as
soon as possible. Since then, the X people have been concentrating on
the TIGA X server for the hires graphics card. We always have and
still do intend to extend the native server to multi-bitplane.
> [ other X problems ]
I'll let the Xperts investigate those.
>a major bug in the socket library (recvfrom () call)
I haven't seen this in our bug list, please send a report to
bu...@amix.commodore.com.
Thanks for all your comments.
-=] Ford [=-
"The number of Unix installations (In Real Life: Mike Ditto)
has grown to 10, with more expected." fo...@amix.commodore.com
- The Unix Programmer's Manual, uunet!cbmvax!ditto
2nd Edition, June, 1972. fo...@kenobi.commodore.com
Charles Severance (System Manager)
If one has gotten access to one of these systems through informal channels,
how and where (within Commodore I assume) can one make bug reports, ask
questions, and make comments.
This is of course assuming one of these systems really exist...
--
Charles Severance internet: c...@convex.cl.msu.edu
Michigan State University phone: (517) 353-2984
301 Computer Center fax: (517) 353-9847
East Lansing, MI 48824 bitnet: 20095CRS@MSU
Rich Skrenta
> If one has gotten access to one of these systems through informal channels,
> how and where (within Commodore I assume) can one make bug reports, ask
> questions, and make comments.
Bug reports should be mailed to bu...@amix.commodore.com. General comments can
be sent to ta...@amix.commodore.com.
Rich
--
Rich Skrenta
skr...@cbmvax.commodore.com
Guy Harris
>see anything that looks like a "/usr/lib/mv_dir" either, so I figure
>they are using "rename".
Assuming Amiga's S5R4 has "truss", you could try running "truss" on
"mv", and see what system calls it makes, if you want to be absolutely
positively sure and nobody from Commodore simply comes out and says
"yes, it uses 'rename()'"....
Rich Skrenta
> works; that presumes that AT&T fixed "mv" not to waste its time with
> "/usr/lib/mv_dir" and just use "rename" to move stuff (including
> directories).
These questions are easily answered with one of my favorite release 4
commands, truss. Truss is a system call tracer:
$ mkdir one
$ truss mv one two
execve("/usr/bin/mv", 0xC07FFF00, 0xC07FFF10) argc = 3
open("/dev/zero", O_RDONLY, 0) = 3
getuid() = 0 [ 0 ]
getuid() = 0 [ 0 ]
getgid() = 0 [ 0 ]
getgid() = 0 [ 0 ]
close(3) = 0
lxstat(2, "one", 0x80004F28) = 0
lxstat(2, "two", 0x80004FB0) Err#2 ENOENT
rename("one", "two") = 0
_exit(0)
$
Yes, mv uses rename().
Rich
--
skr...@amix.commodore.com
USENET News System
Followup-To:
Distribution:
Organization: Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey
Keywords: Amiga unix 3000UX
From: jwit...@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Janaka Withana)
Path: phoenix!jwithana
In article <1991Jan14.0...@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> e...@cunixb.cc.colum
ia.edu (Ethan Solomita) writes:
>In article <NKpr...@visix.com> br...@visix.com (Brett Bourbin) writes:
>>It was my understanding that the A3000UX was still under beta-testing and
>>that we, the beta-testers and software development companies, could not
>>make public comments about it.
>>
>>Is this no longer true?
>
> It has been available to all students, as well as
>developers, for appr. 1 1/2 months. It has been described in many
>ways, simply not officially announced. You are free to talk about
>what it is in it NOW.
>>
IS it available to students? I spoke to software hut in Philadelphia and
they said that Commodore was still deciding whether to have educational
pricing on it. Since UNIX is so widespread on campuses, it would be silly
not to make the discounts available to students....
I am a full-time undergraduate and I WANT a A3000UX
--Janaka Withana
jwit...@phoenix.princeton.edu "life is mostly fun, the rest is bullshit"
The Computer Room
> In article <56...@idunno.Princeton.EDU> ne...@idunno.Princeton.EDU (USENET News System) writes:
> |IS [the A3000UX] available to students? I spoke to software hut in Philadelphia
> |and they said that Commodore was still deciding whether to have educational
> |pricing on it. Since UNIX is so widespread on campuses, it would be silly
> |not to make the discounts available to students....
> |
> |I am a full-time undergraduate and I WANT a A3000UX
>
> the educational discount program.> Dave Schaumann | And then -- what then? Then, future...
> da...@cs.arizona.edu | -Weather Report
To clear this up (maybe:-) here's my point of view. We are an Amiga Dealer that
has also been participating in the Education Transition Program (which has recently ended),
and we _have_ Amiga 3000UX's available for sale to normal customers. We _do not_ have
any information on Educational Pricing for the 3000UX, yet. (Probably my fault for not
calling and checking).
The configuration that we are ordering is the 9MB system, with Ethernet card and
200MB HD. Based on our cost and normal discount, we estimate the retail sales price to be
$6995 (Definatly my fault for not calling and checking :-). This system is coming with
a BETA version of the operating system and manuals, but there is a free (except for freight
and handling) upgrade offer to 1.0 (or the non-BETA release).
---
John Sobernheim t...@tcr.UUCP | ...boulder!tcr!{tcr!root!news}
The Computer Room CIS 76625,1210 | 76625...@compuserve.com
Denver, Colorado "But Moma, that's where the fun is!" (Manfred Man, BS)
Dave P. Schaumann
|and they said that Commodore was still deciding whether to have educational
|pricing on it. Since UNIX is so widespread on campuses, it would be silly
|not to make the discounts available to students....
|
|I am a full-time undergraduate and I WANT a A3000UX
I heard (initially, at least) the A3000UX will be available *only* through
the educational discount program.
|--Janaka Withana
|jwit...@phoenix.princeton.edu "life is mostly fun, the rest is bullshit"
Dave Schaumann | And then -- what then? Then, future...
da...@cs.arizona.edu | -Weather Report
Howard Diamond - Ed Marketing
When the new Education Price lists go out next week, they will include UNIX
systems for institutions, AND individuals.... That was "decided" the day we
decided to have a UNIX line.
--
Howard S. Diamond Director of Education, Commodore Business Machines
1200 Wilson Drive West Chester, Pa, 19380
dia...@cbmvax.commodore.com 215-431-9142
MAKE UP YOUR OWN MIND!! AMIGA!
Howard Diamond - Ed Marketing
>In article <56...@idunno.Princeton.EDU> ne...@idunno.Princeton.EDU (USENET News System) writes:
>|IS [the A3000UX] available to students? I spoke to software hut in Philadelphia
>|and they said that Commodore was still deciding whether to have educational
>|pricing on it. Since UNIX is so widespread on campuses, it would be silly
>|not to make the discounts available to students....
>|
>|I am a full-time undergraduate and I WANT a A3000UX
>
>I heard (initially, at least) the A3000UX will be available *only* through
>the educational discount program.
Not true
>
>|--Janaka Withana
>|jwit...@phoenix.princeton.edu "life is mostly fun, the rest is bullshit"
>
>Dave Schaumann | And then -- what then? Then, future...
>da...@cs.arizona.edu | -Weather Report
Brian Bishop
>
> Truss is a system call tracer:
>
> $ mkdir one
> $ truss mv one two
> execve("/usr/bin/mv", 0xC07FFF00, 0xC07FFF10) argc = 3
> open("/dev/zero", O_RDONLY, 0) = 3
Is this real output? Does truss know to replace the value in the call with
the #define O_RDONLY? If so, that's way cool!! How does it know to do this??
---
Brian Bishop, Software Engineer, Zyga Corporation
(br...@grebyn.com) "This one's for the other dog to see."
Keith Gabryelski
>In article <8...@amix.commodore.com> skr...@amix.commodore.com (Rich Skrenta) writes:
>>
>> Truss is a system call tracer:
>>
>> $ mkdir one
>> $ truss mv one two
>> execve("/usr/bin/mv", 0xC07FFF00, 0xC07FFF10) argc = 3
>> open("/dev/zero", O_RDONLY, 0) = 3
> ^^^^^^^^
>
> Is this real output? Does truss know to replace the value in the call with
>the #define O_RDONLY? If so, that's way cool!! How does it know to do this??
Only somewhat ``way cool''--truss has a set of compiled-in strings
that it uses to resolve the arguments.
The `-x' switch turns this feature off. (ie no symbolic processing
is done and all arguments are displayed as hex digits).
Pax, Keith
Rich Skrenta
> > $ mkdir one
> > $ truss mv one two
> > execve("/usr/bin/mv", 0xC07FFF00, 0xC07FFF10) argc = 3
> > open("/dev/zero", O_RDONLY, 0) = 3
>
> Is this real output? Does truss know to replace the value in the call with
> the #define O_RDONLY? If so, that's way cool!! How does it know to do this??
Truss knows what the arguments to system calls mean, and will fill in
the #defines for them if it can. It even gets the bits right. This is
from a truss of cu connecting to a serial port:
alarm(10) = 0
open("/dev/term/ql01", O_RDWR|O_NDELAY, 0) = 5
alarm(0) = 10
Truss has many options which let you limit the calls being traced, follow
forks, truss already running processes, and elaborate on the arguments to
certain calls.
$ truss -v ioctl date # be verbose about ioctl()
execve("/usr/bin/date", 0xC07FFE60, 0xC07FFE68) argc = 1
open("/dev/zero", O_RDONLY, 0) = 3
getuid() = 0 [ 0 ]
getuid() = 0 [ 0 ]
getgid() = 0 [ 0 ]
getgid() = 0 [ 0 ]
close(3) = 0
brk(0x80006990) = 0
time() = 665688842
ioctl(1, TCGETA, 0xC07FFD28) = 0
1 iflag=0026406 oflag=0000005 cflag=0000277 lflag=0107073 line=0
cc: 003 034 010 025 004 000 000 000
2 Mon Feb 4 12:30:30 EST 1991
write(1, " M o n F e b 4 1".., 29) = 29
_exit(0)
1 - Note information about the TCGETA
2 - Note the real output from the date command, before truss shows the
write call
powie...@gmail.com
> I have seen the light and it is called /usr/amiga/bin/fractal
>
> We received a 3000UX the other day. As far as I know this is
> a saleable unit (I am a dealer), one of the first. The following are my
> impressions of the machine so far.
>
> The Amiga 3000UX that we received is configured with 9 MB's of
> RAM, 1MB of Chip and 8MB's of Fast (using 1mbitx4 zips). It has a
> 200MB Hard Drive. The Ethernet Board was also included and installed.
> (From the brochure my dad got at Comdex, I had thought the Ethernet
> board would be an optional pheripheral). It comes with three manuals;
> Installing Amiga UNIX, Learning Amiga UNIX, and, Using Amiga UNIX.
> Unix. There is a short command reference manual included. There is a
> single page saying that this is a BETA release of the software and
> manuals and that the user is eligible for a free upgrade to version 1.0
> of the software and manuals (For a $50.00 media replacement/shipping and
> handling charge :-). The version of Unix in this A3000UX was
> BETA 3j. An errata page listing known bugs and problems was also
> included. Finally, there were two 3.5" floppy disks (3000UX Boot & Root
> File System) and an install tape cartridge as well as the standard Amiga
> software and manuals. The system was preloaded with Unix. I set up the
> system with a 1950 Color Monitor and the A2232 multiple serial port card.
>
> By holding down both mouse buttons on boot, I was able to boot
> into AmigaDos 1.3 and 2.0. The Work: partition was set up as a circa
> 21MB partition.
>
> By rebooting the machine without holding down the mouse buttons, it
> booted into Unix. (On the first boot, it went through a configuration
> script asking about network setup, passwords, etc. I was absent through
> this procedure). When it got to the login prompt, I logged in as root,
> and used the SYSADM (Similar to FACE on 3.2x Unix) interface to add a
> new user and home directory called tcr. It created a /home/tcr directory
> and set up ksh as the default shell.
>
> First thing I did, as tcr, was lock up the console :-). I tried,
> and succeeded, to run Xwindows, but I forgot that I needed some sort
> of interface to it, ie. Xterm, Open Look, etc. After TURNING OFF THE
> POWER and going through a palm sweating fsck on reboot, I read the manual
> a little and found that we have virtual terminals in Amiga Unix. If you
> hit left-alternate-F1_through_F8, you can have eight (or ten, depending
> on how you configure it) virtual terminals into Amiga Unix. When I locked
> up the one virtual terminal by trying to run X, all I should of done was
> log in under another virtual terminal (left-alt-F2) and kill the task.
> Live and learn.
>
> Shortly after this, I found (by reading the manual) a script called
> oladduser which added all the stuff to my home directory and set up paths
> to allow me to run Open Look. I got Open Look up and spent the rest of
> the day, trying to get it up in more than one bit-plane. I was not
> successful. (If anyone knows what I need to do please mail me!) A couple
> of decent tech/unix guys came in and we all played with the machine some
> more. I asked them about my problems with X and they said, "right" :-).
>
> We found a neat thing in SysVR.4 where when doing a 'ls -al' it now
> shows links in the format of file -> file. (file [is linked to] file).
> There are a large number of man pages included in the installation, a
> variety of games including nethack and adventure in /usr/games, amiga
> specific files in /usr/amiga, troff, gcc and cc. The default $PATH
> doesn't seem to include the users current directory, which is interesting.
> (I think it has to do with /etc/profile and /usr/bin/ksh. ie. In /etc/
> profile it says something like if shell is rsh or csh, do this, it doesn't
> do it if shell is ksh. Anyway I haven't gotten around to checking that
> out). I compiled hello.c with gcc and cc. A customer came in and we
> stuck a #pragma in to see if gcc would try and invoke nethack or something,
> it didn't appear to. Another customer found a man page for nawk (new Awk)
> but couldn't find the program itself. There is a spreadsheet included in
> the distribution. News software is included in the distribution, I didn't
> check to see what other communications software was included... kermit,
> umodem, etc.
>
> We played around with tty monitors and servers and got a login prompt
> out to a 2500 running vt100. My UnixPC, that's on the net, is all the way
> on the other side of the store and I haven't gotten up on it yet. /etc/
> inittab has entries for the built in serial port and the A2232 multiple
> serial port card. The built in serial port is referred to as /dev/term/ser.
> /etc/inittab also has entries for all of the virtual screens calling a
> program called /usr/amiga/bin/getscr as the "getty".
>
> All this time I hadn't seen a single color other than the standard
> console screen of 640x200xblackxgold, the F2 - F8 Screens of varying
> resolutions and colors (ie. F5 is 640x400xblackxwhite) and the Open Look
> screen of 640x400xblackxwhite. A half hour after the store closed last
> night I ran it... /usr/amiga/bin/fractal. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! It is
> an Amiga. :-)
>
> There is a device called /dev/amiga that let's the developer access
> the Amiga's Hardware, I think.. the manual warns about it's usage however.
>
> Anyway, I hope this serves to whet ya'lls collective appetites. Any
> questions/problems I can help with, please mail me. If anyone would like,
> I can post files like /etc/inittab, directories, etc.
> John Sobernheim ...boulder!tcr!news || ne...@tcr.UUCP
> The Computer Room ...CIS 76625,1210
I'm posting in antic thread :D