How do I doo an upgrae and/orupdate on my Qbone?

Robert Myers

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Jan 8, 2026, 9:35:03 PM (22 hours ago) Jan 8

to UniBone

I have been busy with other thingsfor the last year (or so) and haven't done much with my 11/83 & Qbone. Can someone tell me how to update my Qbone since it hasn't been touched since the tail end of 2024?

thanks,

Bob

Mark Matlock

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7:50 AM (12 hours ago) 7:50 AM

to Robert Myers, UniBone

Bob,

The one thing that happened in the last few years is that the QBone and UniBone code bases have merged. At the root level there are two files with extensions of .env One of them, qunibone-platform.env is shown below as properly configured for QBone updates. If you do have this file then things are pretty simple.

Just run ./update-code.sh It will download and recompile everything to the latest official release. Note, if you use RT-11 there is a wonderful enhancement with magic file translation between Linux and RT-11 RL02 disk images.

If you don’t have qunibone-platform.env then the easiest thing is to run ./update-code.sh twice. The first run will bring down qunibone-platform.env (and recompile), but then you need to verify qunibone-platform.env is set for QBus and run ./update-code.sh a second time when the environment variables are correct.

One other thing that is currently under development is a DEQNA emulation so if you want to have an ethernet card and don’t have one the wired ethernet on the Beaglebone can be bridged like is done on PiDP-11s. Dave Plummer is working on this in a test fork of the QUniBone code. It will be combined into the official code base when it’s completed.

There is also a ./update-files.sh that brings down the latest changes to the various disk images that are available. If you have system images that you have already modified then you may not want to do this unless you’ve save your disk images, .cmd files and .sh files in separate directories. If you had not previously customized things for your 11/83 then this would get you the latest disk images, but I don’t think they have changed much.

Best,

Mark Matlock

root@QBoneDual2:~# cat qunibone-platform.env

# qunibone-platform.env

# Settings to adapt generic "QUniBone" software installation

# to either "UniBone" or "QBone" hardware platform.

#

# Bound to specific hardware, not part of github repository.

# Must default to "UNIBONE" config!

# for file tree (was PLATFORM_SUFFIX)

QUNIBONE_PLATFORM_SUFFIX=_q

#QUNIBONE_PLATFORM_SUFFIX=_u

# Important for makefiles (was MAKE_QUNIBUS)

QUNIBONE_PLATFORM=QBUS

#QUNIBONE_PLATFORM=UNIBUS

Sent from my iPad

On Jan 8, 2026, at 8:35 PM, 'Robert Myers' via UniBone <uni...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

I have been busy with other thingsfor the last year (or so) and haven't done much with my 11/83 & Qbone. Can someone tell me how to update my Qbone since it hasn't been touched since the tail end of 2024?

thanks,
Bob

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Robert Myers

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2:35 PM (5 hours ago) 2:35 PM

to UniBone

Thanks for the information. I'll look and see what I need to do when I get back in town in two weeks, when I have to tear my 11/83 apart tosinstall a

Zuluscsi vlaster caed and attempt to onstall an ethernet card (I tried once before to do this buy had problems with the length of the cable reaching the

back end of the BA23's case). I might have to settle with the newly developed wifi interface once its released,