"Official" CBM UNIX Statement from Unigram-X
Gerry Lachac
Well, Commodore made a statement regarding it's Unix development,
according to Unigram-X, which is a weekly Unix newsletter. ($495/year
if you're interested :-)
A few choice statements, since I won't infringe on they're copyright...
- CBM has denied "uncategorically" that it is dropping its
Unix development. They mention that a rumor was started on the "net".
- Whatever happened (ie layoffs) "cost it one Unix developer."
If anyone is interested in reading the article (it's only one
paragraph) it can be found in the Aug 12-16 issue (#346) of Unigram-X.
Now, can we stop all the bickering and rumor-mongering, and do
something constructive?????
DISCLAIMER: I am not associated with Unigram-X in any way, other then
reading it on a weekly basis.
--
Love grows like a flower, % EMAIL: ge...@dialogic.com
Love grows like a tumor, % USMAIL: Dialogic Corp.
Love proves that God has a % 300 Littleton Rd Parsippany, NJ
sense of humor. -Joe Jackson % PHONE: (201)334-1268 ext 193
Sri Ramkrishna
>- CBM has denied "uncategorically" that it is dropping its
> Unix development. They mention that a rumor was started on the "net".
Who US????? Naaaaah! We would never start a rumor, no way! All of our
assumptions here are based on fact and good reliable sources! Yes, sir.
We have a clean slate here, us good ol' boys wouldn't say nuthin that couldn't
be construed as fact, yessireebob! We never base any of our postins on
anything but factola, we would never base it on hearsay and go on a
witchhunt (commodore hunt?), thats plum wrong, just plum wrong. I believe
I do speak for me, and not the rest of the net or is that vice versa?
Maybe the net speaks for me, and I don't even know it? I'll think I'll
stop now. Have a nice day. :-)
>Now, can we stop all the bickering and rumor-mongering, and do
>something constructive?????
I'm not even gonna start. :-) There is a limit to sarcasm!
Checkpoint Technologies
> Unix development. They mention that a rumor was started on the "net".
I don't recall a "rumor", it was simply the interpretation of the data at
hand, and it can still be considered valid. Commodore has scaled back
the development of Amiga Unix, and I consider that bad news. It may be
the right thing for Commodore to do (concentrate on low end A500s and
consumer oriented CDTVs) but I don't like it.
So I've decided to invest in a PC Unix system instead; it's future is
far from questionable, with seventy-eleven vendors offering SVR4, a
thriving third-party market, and 486 clones so cheap and so fast...
--
Richard Krehbiel, private citizen c...@grebyn.com
(Who needs a fancy .signature?)
Chad Freeman
who's having hard times laying off a few people. It doesn't need people
who over-react to a company utilizing its staff to its fullest
potential, either. With Amiga Unix 2.0, the major porting work for Unix
was done. While I hate to see people lose jobs, Commodore didn't need
a bazillion (or 9) people working on Unix anymore. 2.0 hasn't even been
released yet, and they're most likely waiting for user input and bug
reports before starting off on a new version of Unix. The future of
Unix was _never_ in question, as far as I can see. There's still a Unix
programmer there, and there's still 2 people who can come back to Unix
when the need arises. I have never worked _anywhere_ where a business
has let employees sit idle (not even for a second). Why should
Commodore do that, just to give you a false sense of security. Even if
Amiga Unix had 20 programmers working on it, Commodore could axe them
and abandon Unix just as easily as it could now. Have fun with your
clone. I suppose you'll switch to A/UX when your Unix software company
of choice fires their copy boy.
MY contribution to the flame war. Followups directed to
c.s.a.advocacy...
Rob Healey
=So I've decided to invest in a PC Unix system instead; it's future is
=far from questionable, with seventy-eleven vendors offering SVR4, a
=thriving third-party market, and 486 clones so cheap and so fast...
=Richard Krehbiel, private citizen c...@grebyn.com
First, Amiga UNIX IS PC UNIX. PC means Personal Computer not
Intel based personal computer. Amiga's are PC's, Apples are
PC's, Atari's are PC's etc. Don't insult the rest of
us by being so arrogant as to think that all the world
is Intel garbage based and that only an Intel based system is
a PC. End of pet peeve I've had since IBM introduced the abortion
in the early 80's while us PC owners of TRS-80, Apple, Atari and others
looked on in horror when IBM called it's disaster a "PC".
Actually, the FUTURE of x86 is probably not the brightest since
it's a CISC CPU and most chip manufacturers are going to RISC
designs, even Intel. But that's peripheral.
You chose to go with an Intel based solition, maybe that's right
for you. People have been listing all the reasons why you
SHOULDN'T go with an Amiga, I'll list some reasons why you
SHOULD:
1) Amiga makes a better hobby machine as the wealth of music,
video and art programs is second to none; PERIOD. While
AmigaDOS currently has the bulk of the software there's
no reason why most of the MIDI and drawing programs wouldn't
work under UNIX if you want them to. The Amiga gives you
TWO POWERFUL MULTITASKING OS's which together make for
an excellent home system for hobbys and hacking.
You can have AmigaDOS to tap a wealth of hobby programs and
games as well as some productivity software that is better
than MSDOG versions AND you can tap into the wealth of UNIX
and X programs. All with the EXACT same hardware. One machine
rather than two, less power plugs and desk space taken up in
the area your wife reluctantly gives you for computer space. B^).
2) Despite what people think, SVR4 UNIX CAN RUN REALTIME. A
realtime process under SVR4 pre-empts EVERYTHING except
the lower half inturrupt routines and the scheduler. The
pager, swapper, buffer flusher and all other user and kernel
processes can be blocked from ever running if the real time
processes chooses to be nasty. You have to program them VERY
carefully but it would be possible to get real time response
out of UNIX for specific programs and then return it to
a "normal" UNIX setup. You can change a process from a
timesharing class to a realtime class and back again so
if you wanted to run say a sound digitizer you could
start it up, make it a real time process, have it do it's
critical work as a real time process and then switch it
back to a timesharing process when the work is done. The
net effect is that the timesharing class would be CPU
starved while the application was a real time process.
What this is leading up to is the fact that all the STOCK
hardware capabilitys of an Amiga ARE available to UNIX,
even the one's that require real-time response for their
work. All the MIDI, digitizing, video etc. CAN be done
under Amiga UNIX, the Intel UNIX's can't do this with base
hardware or cheap additions.
For those who think I'm full of shit saying UNIX can be
put into a real-time mode, check out the AT&T docs
for the RT scheduling class in the Prentice Hall books.
The RT class ALWAYS get's the CPU if a process in it
is ready to run, there are no exceptions to this rule.
You can lock up SVR4 TIGHT by running a process in
the RT class that loops forever and does no I/O or
system calls.
3) Amiga UNIX comes with the SOURCE for the Amiga specific
drivers, kernel tables and some of the locore assembly as well
as the boot loader code. Source for the Amiga specific utilities
is also provided as well as a ton of PD software and the GNU
compiler and debugger. No other UNIX does that, not the
Intel based UNIX's, not Sun, not DEC, not Apple, not IBM; NOBODY
ELSE. For people who want to mess around at the low level's
of UNIX Amiga is the only UNIX that will let us do that.
4) Amiga hardware and specifically the Zorro III buss and CPU
slot allows for better throughput than EISA. I have the
FULL EISA specs in front of me now and it appears that the
BEST you can do is a burst mode where you get data every
bus clock. At the 8MHz EISA bus speed this comes to about
32Mbytes per second. The Zorro III allows for at least
40Mbytes per second. Aside from that, the Zorro III isn't
held down by the disk controller or a video card like the
EISA would be. The SCSI interface, the stock video and
the general I/O buss are all seperate. The Amiga has
better overall system throughput than an EISA based
Intel box can ever hope to have. You can put Sabere's SCSI disk's
on the SCSI bus and still not Max out the SCSI controller!
5) With the Amiga there are no I/O or memory conflicts for
peripherals to worry about. No headaches if you update to
new peripherals. On the Intel hardware you always have to
be careful about this.
6) 2.0 UNIX is still farther along than the Intel based systems.
You get X11R4, most of the popular PD programs and working
GNU utils STRAIGHT OUT OF THE BOX. No running around trying
to transfer the PD programs, no forking over extra bucks
for X11R4, no sweating over getting Roell's server going.
It's all there when you turn on the power for the first time.
It would appear that C= will keep working on UNIX so things
will slowly get even better.
7) The UNIX people at C= have been more responsive and helpful
than any of the bigger vendors I've ever delt with. Try
getting service or detailed OS questions answered by a
Sun, DEC or IBM support person if you AREN'T from a mondo
huge site. Talk about pulling teeth... I'm not talking
"Is it plugged in" type questions here, I'm talking
"How do your ? functions interact with lower level hardware?"
Assuming the C= UNIX people won't or can't tell you straight
out you can look at the source to the Amiga specific libs and
drivers and figure it out. THAT'S value in my book and is worth the
extra I paid over some cheaper workstation that requires a
big server somewhere on the net anyways to work right; can
you say "hidden costs"?
8) I personally get by with LaTeX, sc and some PD stuff for
documents, spreadsheet and small database work. I'm sure
GNU and X enthusiasts will come out with other solutions.
The fact that Word Perfect, 123 and Oracle aren't available
yet doesn't bother me personally. This IS a problem for
some people. If you absolutely NEED these programs you
have no choice but to go with Intel or Sun AT THIS TIME.
Amiga UNIX is SVR4, commercial apps written for Intel SVR4
and soon Sun SVR4 are technically only the matter of a
recompile on a UX machine.
9) The CPU slot and Zorro III bus allow for some VERY interesting
upgrade potential without me losing my initial investment
in the stock 3000 hardware.
10) 2000 owners who upgrade to 2.0 and who have 030 boards
can get UNIX without throwing out their current investment
in the 2000.
While there are many reason's why Intel or Sun might be
right for you, there are also plenty of reasons why
Amiga UNIX can be the right choice too.
To each their own I guess, my "own" is decidedly Amiga,
-Rob
Peter da Silva
> far from questionable, with seventy-eleven vendors offering SVR4, a
> thriving third-party market, and 486 clones so cheap and so fast...
Yeh, and in two or three years when VR5 comes out and no vendors except SCO
selling or supporting VR4 you'll discover what people who made that decision
on the last generation of System V are feeling.
If *we* had driver source for our VR3 systems we'd be a *lot* happier, even
if the vendor went under. Actually... our vendor *does* seem to have quit
the direct sales UNIX market...
--
Peter da Silva; Ferranti International Controls Corporation; +1 713 274 5180;
Sugar Land, TX 77487-5012; `-_-' "Have you hugged your wolf, today?"
Kirby A. Heintzelman
In talking with our CBM rep, this story seems to be the official line. I was
assured that there was no reason to panic, and was personally not suprised
that all this was a bunch of "hooey", esp. considering that C= has just
announced new prices on the UNIX boxes, and a new A3000UXG, which is bundled
with the Lowell board. These boxes are, BTW available via the educational
purchase program.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Kirby Heintzelman
Somers Photo & Computer
-----------------------------------------------------------------
--
Checkpoint Technologies
>In article <1991Aug14.0...@grebyn.com> c...@grebyn.com (Checkpoint Technologies) writes:
>=So I've decided to invest in a PC Unix system instead; it's future is
>=far from questionable, with seventy-eleven vendors offering SVR4, a
>=thriving third-party market, and 486 clones so cheap and so fast...
>=Richard Krehbiel, private citizen c...@grebyn.com
>
> First, Amiga UNIX IS PC UNIX. PC means Personal Computer not
> Intel based personal computer. Amiga's are PC's, Apples are
This was true once. Not any more. There was no one who read my post
that didn't know that I meant an Intel based, IBM clone. PC no longer
means "Personal Computer" (which the Amiga certainly is - a personal
computer), it's not a generic term. A PC runs MS-DOS and Lotus (and not
via an "emulator" or bridge card). It's simply that this is popularly
accepted, it has nothing to do whether it's right, or arrogant, or
whatever.
> Actually, the FUTURE of x86 is probably not the brightest since
> it's a CISC CPU and most chip manufacturers are going to RISC
> designs, even Intel. But that's peripheral.
Intel has moved most of it's development team into the x86 arena. Since
the 860 has been a virtual fiasco, they've decided that their bread and
butter is in x86's. Did you hear about the 100MHz 486? Did you know
that the 50MHz 486 is shipping? The x86 may be a generation behind, but
it seems to be staying consistently one generation behind, which is
saying a lot.
> 1) Amiga makes a better hobby machine as the wealth of music,
> video and art programs is second to none; PERIOD. While
> AmigaDOS currently has the bulk of the software there's
> no reason why most of the MIDI and drawing programs wouldn't
> work under UNIX if you want them to. The Amiga gives you
> TWO POWERFUL MULTITASKING OS's which together make for
> an excellent home system for hobbys and hacking.
I could not agree with this more. I had more fun with my Amiga than
I've ever had with a computer, and this doesn't even necessarily include
the games I played.
> 4) Amiga hardware and specifically the Zorro III buss and CPU
> slot allows for better throughput than EISA. I have the
This is true, Zorro III is a much better bus than EISA. But far more
options are available for ISA, which is roughly comparable in
performance to Zorro II; There are some EISA options available
(including a nice bus mastering SCSI card, the Adaptec 1740), whereas
there are *no* Zorro III cards whatsoever. After all, what developer
in his right mind would restrict his market to A3000 owners?
> 5) With the Amiga there are no I/O or memory conflicts for
> peripherals to worry about. No headaches if you update to
> new peripherals. On the Intel hardware you always have to
> be careful about this.
Very true. Intel's are hard to configure; there are people who
make a living doing just that. But mine's working.
> 6) 2.0 UNIX is still farther along than the Intel based systems.
This will change, very soon. There are several competing vendors of
Intel SVR4, and where there is competition, there is excellence.
(Interactive's SVR4 has just become available, and ISC has an excellent
reputation. Their SVR3 is outstanding.)
> It would appear that C= will keep working on UNIX so things
> will slowly get even better.
It would appear that way to some. I have personally decided that I
cannot depend upon this.
> 9) The CPU slot and Zorro III bus allow for some VERY interesting
> upgrade potential without me losing my initial investment
> in the stock 3000 hardware.
The upgrade potential of a PC is far higher. There is a popular
standard motherboard form factor. Right now I could replace my 386/33
with a 486/33 for just over a grand. This is similar to the price the
68040 cards just now becoming available for the A3000. When 486/50s and
486/100s and 586/250s arrive, they'll be available in the same
motherboard form factor; I know this because of the size of the
marketplace. Commodore could do this (put the next generation Amiga
5000 on a motherboard that would fit into an A3000 case), but their
track record is kinda bad. They do not offer a motherboard upgrade for
A2000 owners. And further, there's only one possible vendor of future
Amiga motherboards, Commodore. There are a zillion PC motherboard
makers, including more than a handful of reputable ones...
Uh, anything further on this subject should probably be banished to
.advocacy...
Marc Wiz
> In talking with our CBM rep, this story seems to be the official line. I was
> assured that there was no reason to panic, and was personally not suprised
> that all this was a bunch of "hooey", esp. considering that C= has just
> announced new prices on the UNIX boxes, and a new A3000UXG, which is bundled
> with the Lowell board. These boxes are, BTW available via the educational
> purchase program.
>
Can we have details here on the net about the new prices and the A3000UXG?
And could we have retail prices as well?
Some of us :-( cannot get the educational discount :-)
Marc Wiz MaBell (512)838-4780
Yes that really is my last name.
The views expressed are my own.
ma...@aixwiz.austin.ibm.com
or
uunet!cs.utexas.edu!ibmchs!auschs!ekhomeni.austin.ibm.com!marc
Rob Healey
>Intel has moved most of it's development team into the x86 arena. Since
>the 860 has been a virtual fiasco, they've decided that their bread and
>butter is in x86's. Did you hear about the 100MHz 486? Did you know
>that the 50MHz 486 is shipping? The x86 may be a generation behind, but
>it seems to be staying consistently one generation behind, which is
>saying a lot.
>
100MHz 486 when I see it. Most of the hardware people I know
have commented that the 100MHz version would make a better
FM radio station then processor, but they're SPARC and MIPS
fans, sorta like DEC, Compaq, Sun and IBM. I still say the
CISC design is nearing the end of it's marketability.
By the way, WHAT GOOD is the 50MHz let alone the 100MHz part?
The I/O subsystems can't provide data anywhere near that
speed. You can design seperate memory systems and caches
but they don't do squat for you're I/O. You can design faster
I/O buses but then you lose mass marketing. The only
advantage the faster clocks give you are math and memory
moves but RISC systems already beat out CISC's in that
department. It's amazing how many people believe that
raw MIPS, caches and memory systems will speed up your
systems greatly. The data still has to go in and out slow
I/O subsystems.
A 2 processor Compaq at work is blazingly fast for calculating
PI but guess what? It's database performance isn't much greater
than a 33Mhz 386 uniprocessor system, in fact the normal users
can't tell the difference.
When you look at ads for better and faster processors think about
how much time they will be twiddling their thumbs waiting for
EISA high performance I/O boards... The >33Mhz parts are
a waste for the current EISA or worse ISA bus based systems. Maybe
the turbo bus from ACE will help.
>This is true, Zorro III is a much better bus than EISA. But far more
>options are available for ISA, which is roughly comparable in
>performance to Zorro II; There are some EISA options available
>(including a nice bus mastering SCSI card, the Adaptec 1740), whereas
>there are *no* Zorro III cards whatsoever.
To put the question another way, WHY are there more ISA
cards? Because the stock hardware is deficiant.
The 3000 has a high speed SCSI interface on the motherboard, most
Intel based systems are going with the slower IDE for builtin
controllers forcing you to use ISA or EISA for SCSI disk and tape I/O.
Most Intel machines require the video board to go on the system
bus, obviously the 3000's don't require that yet. Both require
multiport serial cards to go the respective busses.
So, the reason the Zorro III bus doesn't have many cards is because
the base system already HAS all the subsystems on the motherboard
that you'd have to resort to cards on the Intel systems. Memory
cards will probably be the first thing offered as 16M can get
cramped for UNIX if you run a GUI heavily or if you run lot's
of users or processes.
>After all, what developer
>in his right mind would restrict his market to A3000 owners?
>
That's the draw for UNIX on the 3000's, a person can develop
SVR4 code and X code on their Amiga without the hassles involved
in the care and feeding of an Intel based box. The code then
can be recompiled on other SVR4 architectures. Development
on the Amiga, portability to Intel, MIPS and SPARC SVR4's.
>This will change, very soon. There are several competing vendors of
>Intel SVR4, and where there is competition, there is excellence.
>(Interactive's SVR4 has just become available, and ISC has an excellent
>reputation. Their SVR3 is outstanding.)
>
You haven't seen the current SVR4 4.0.3 from ISC have you? It's
disappointing to say the least. I thought they'd do better than
a simple repackaging of USL code. DELL is the best so far but
they don't back up th OS on non-DELL hardware. ISC doesn't even
have the MAN pages! Sheesh.
Unfortunately, with Intel the competition has bred acceptance of
System V products inferior to other architectures. Compare an
Intel SVR3 to a Motorola, 3b2 or RISC SVR3, the faults will soon
become apparent. I HOPE they'll do better with SVR4 than they
did with SVR3. After all, even though the SVR3's are all
supposed to be compatable, you still have to generate different
code or recompile when going from SCO, ISC, ESIX, Microport, etc.
to the others. They all changed things in subtle ways or have different
levels of bug fixing.
Despite the hype, the Intel SVR3's are alot messier than
other architecture's SVR3.
Before you buy any Micro UNIX talk to current owners to find
out what the quirks are. All have quirks, some are more
tolerable than others.
>It would appear that way to some. I have personally decided that I
>cannot depend upon this.
>
I don't know that I can depend of SCO, ISC or DELL to provide
support for a specific device I want or if they'll ship
X11R4 that will work with the video card I want to use, DELL does
for now. My point? You can left standing by Intel vendors just
as likely as C= might. C= doesn't have exclusive rights in
this department. I deal with SCO, UHC, ISC, Sun, ESIX and
Microport at work. All have unadvertised restrictions on their
OS's. They've dropped support for "old" cards without warning
and left you with no other choice then to not upgrade to the
newest bug fixes or buy new equipment. Certain combinations
of equipment just won't work, i.e. an Adaptec SCSI controller
and HP Coyote drives. Buying into Intel doesn't get rid of
problems vs buying into C=, it just changes the problem set.
From the experiences at work I just decided the C= problems
were less of a hassle than the Intel problems. You're mileage
WILL vary.
>The upgrade potential of a PC is far higher. There is a popular
>standard motherboard form factor.
To upgrade Intel machines you replace the motherboard, to update
2000's and 3000's you add a processor card. There's a subtle difference
there...
New Intel based motherbaords have FINALLY caught on to the CPU upgrade
only, trouble is they still limit the I/O to 8Mhz bus speeds. A
20MHz bus, Zorro III, provides for a faster interconnect of
memory, coprocessors (multiple), and general I/O.
With Intel based designs you can upgrade the CPU but your I/O
bandwidth will still be the same. The 3000 drives SCSI to
the full SCSI bandwidth, the zorro III bus can provide up to
40Mbyte transfer bandwith, adding a faster CPU to the system
improves the whole system since the I/O bandwidth is so high.
What are the EISA upgrades? Disk, Display, serial I/O, networking,
memory(tho it belongs on seperate memory bus), tape. All of these
upgrades will still be constraigned by 8Mhz EISA bus speed. Plus,
all the low cost systems are still ISA and will be for the near
future. I don't see that the upgradability of EISA based and
CPU module based is any better than Zorro III. Most of the things
you put on the bus of an inexpensive Intel motherboard are
builtin to the 3000 so you don't NEED the bus cards although
3rd partys DO make them. Most $1500.00 486 systems don't have an
EISA bus either.
Is this .advocacy? Yes and no. Yes, because the Intel is
better post is poking at the most of the users of this
group and isn't necessarily true. What I'm trying to point
out is that the Intel motherboards and systems are no panacia
either. They aren't as rosy as some of you would paint them.
I'm saying don't go with the crowd because it's the thing to
do, look at what you'll really need and how much hassle you
can tolerate THEN decide which system serves your needs best.
There are pluses and minuses to both systems.
-Rob
Chip Salzenberg
>In talking with our CBM rep, this story seems to be the official line. I was
>assured that there was no reason to panic, and was personally not suprised
You seriously expect a salescritter to tell you that a project he is
paid to flog has just become a dead end?
"You Americans are so naive."
--
Chip Salzenberg at Teltronics/TCT <ch...@tct.com>, <uunet!pdn!tct!chip>
"He's alive; he's fat; and he's fighting crime. He's Elvis: FBI."
Charlie Gibbs
>In article <14...@ub.d.umn.edu> rhe...@ub.d.umn.edu (Rob Healey) writes:
>>
>> First, Amiga UNIX IS PC UNIX. PC means Personal Computer not
>> Intel based personal computer. Amiga's are PC's, Apples are
>
>This was true once. Not any more. There was no one who read my post
>that didn't know that I meant an Intel based, IBM clone.
However, there are still some of us unrepentant souls out there
who will resist this. Some publications, too (e.g. Unix Today),
still use "PC" in its generic sense.
>PC no longer means "Personal Computer"
In this Intel-dominated world, it actually stands for
"Politically Correct."
>It's simply that this is popularly
>accepted, it has nothing to do whether it's right, or arrogant, or
>whatever.
I think the reason some of us fight it so hard is that there's
nothing IBM/Intel/Microsoft would like more than for people to be
incapable of thinking that any other sort of personal computer
exists. This to me comes frighteningly close to the Newspeak of
Orwell's 1984, whose goal was to make it grammatically impossible
to utter a phrase that wasn't PC as in Politically Correct - sort
of a Pascal for the mind. :-)
Charli...@mindlink.bc.ca
My A1000 _is_ a PC! It says "Personal Computer" right on the box!
Jukka Partanen
>> 6) 2.0 UNIX is still farther along than the Intel based systems.
>
>This will change, very soon. There are several competing vendors of
>Intel SVR4, and where there is competition, there is excellence.
>(Interactive's SVR4 has just become available, and ISC has an excellent
>reputation. Their SVR3 is outstanding.)
You call it outstanding when cc produces code the assembler
can't handle (compiling TeX with -O), or when cpp doesn't
expand some macros right (TeX again). Or what about linking
ckermit, ld says something like "can't copy section .data from
libc.a". And the keyboard driver and the serial driver don't
seem to work properly either. Outstanding, yes indeed.
Thank god I don't have to work with Interactive systems.
--
When the going gets rough, more formalism is required - David Gries
jerry cullingford
> can get UNIX without throwing out their current investment
> in the 2000.
I keep hearing rumours about this.. Does anyone KNOW if unix is available/
planned to be available for non-3000's?
I have a GVP 030 combo board in my 2000, and enough spare disk space (Heh!
aren't gigabyte drives fun :-), and I'd certainly be interested. I assume
the main problems would be catering for the different disk controller, and
memory layout - I can't see why it should matter that much whether you have
1.3 or 2.0 roms, since you presumably wouldn't use them after booting anyway?
So, is there any hard information out there?
(or informed rumours from Commodore sources? :-)
Or is this all just wishful thinking?
(You know, toasterware, like 2.0 for 2000's - a great idea that people rave
about, shows up at demo's, and takes years and years and years to arrive :-(
-Jerry (Still waiting for a PAL toaster,PAL DCTV, 2.0 and Unix :-)
--
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+ |
| Jerry Cullingford #include <std.disclaimer> +44 442 230000 | ,-|--
| j...@crosfield.co.uk (was j...@cel.co.uk) or j...@cel.uucp x3203 | \_|__
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+ \___/
Rob Healey
=In article <14...@ub.d.umn.edu> rhe...@ub.d.umn.edu (Rob Healey) writes:
=> 10) 2000 owners who upgrade to 2.0 and who have 030 boards
=> can get UNIX without throwing out their current investment
=> in the 2000.
=
=I keep hearing rumours about this.. Does anyone KNOW if unix is available/
=planned to be available for non-3000's?
=
The kernel source has the 2000 devices in it, it explicitly
mentions the 2000. Techincally, 2.0 UNIX does have the
ability to run on 2000 with an 030 and 2090/2091 SCSI devices.
The link map for the 2500 indicates they were using a 16M
memory system for their 2000 system. There are also link maps
for 4, 8 and 16M 3000's.
=I have a GVP 030 combo board in my 2000, and enough spare disk space (Heh!
=aren't gigabyte drives fun :-), and I'd certainly be interested. I assume
=the main problems would be catering for the different disk controller, and
=memory layout - I can't see why it should matter that much whether you have
=1.3 or 2.0 roms, since you presumably wouldn't use them after booting anyway?
=
I'd think the SCSI controller would be the big problem. GVP would
have to add to the SCSI code in /usr/sys/amiga/alien/2091.c or
some such.
UNIX depends on autoconfig 100%, it depends on the fact that
an arbitrary rdb boot partition can be booted from cold boot. It assumes
a 2.0 ROM setup of the system when the UNIX boot code takes control. It
uses the ADOS boot sequence to eventually get to booting UNIX. From
the ROM point of view it looks like it's just booting another
ADOS partition. The second stage boot is what turns it fully into
a UNIX machine. You are correct, after the UNIX boot code is
loaded in and started the ROM's aren't used anymore but you
very much need the ROM autoconfig and boot code to get UNIX
into the machine.
=So, is there any hard information out there?
=(or informed rumours from Commodore sources? :-)
=
I'm looking at 2.0 beta boot code and Amiga kernel drivers, don't
know how much more "hard information" you can get then the
source for the running code. When 2.0 comes out look at
code in /usr/sys and below, specifically /usr/sys/amiga, for
all the gory details.
Now, the trick is to be able to walk down to your neighborhood
Amiga dealer and actually GET 2.0 UNIX... Last I heard on the
rumor mill was mid Sept., anybody got "hard" information
on that?
-Rob
Kriston J. Rehberg
[...]
|> The kernel source has the 2000 devices in it, it explicitly
|> mentions the 2000. Techincally, 2.0 UNIX does have the
|> ability to run on 2000 with an 030 and 2090/2091 SCSI devices.
|> The link map for the 2500 indicates they were using a 16M
|> memory system for their 2000 system. There are also link maps
|> for 4, 8 and 16M 3000's.
And, remember, AMIX was developed mainly on the 68020 A2500's in the
early days...
[...]
|> Now, the trick is to be able to walk down to your neighborhood
|> Amiga dealer and actually GET 2.0 UNIX... Last I heard on the
|> rumor mill was mid Sept., anybody got "hard" information
|> on that?
Haha nope.
|> -Rob
---
Kriston J. Rehberg, Consultant, S.U.N.Y. Binghamton Computer Services
<con...@bingsuns.cc.binghamton.edu> || <CON...@BINGVAXA.BITnet>
#include <stddiscl.h> /* take it or leave it! */
#pragma employer_responsibility (off) /* "Hackito ergo sum!" */