A/UX distinctives...

[ChristTrekker]

What would you say are the distinctives of A/UX? What really sets it apart from all (or at least most) other Unices? Not just particular quirks (though it would be interesting to know about those too) but features or characteristics that really define the A/UX experience. Since A/UX was discontinued, have any other Unices stepped up to fill those gaps, in your view?

 

[porter]

1. really crap shared library support and no mmap() function to roll your own ELF

2. the only UNIX that can actually use localtalk!!!!

3. despite being a System V UNIX, I can't find XTI or TLI

4. it does have POSIX support, but no threads

5. you don't need to use the MacOS/Finder layer

6. got badly burned with Y2K compliance

7. no PPP support, and slattach will only work on serial ports, not pseudo terminals.

8. UNIX programs can really use AppleTalk sockets

9. very old X11 release

 

[Bunsen]

2. the only UNIX that can actually use localtalk!!!!

Netatalk won't cut it for you?

 

[Gil]

2. the only UNIX that can actually use localtalk!!!!

Netatalk won't cut it for you?

I think he's referring to the physical network, LocalTalk. I don't know if Netatalk does that.

 

[ChristTrekker]

Porter, you do a pretty good job pointing out the shortcomings.

• I didn't think A/UX supported shared libraries at all...
  
• True...but big whoop. For integration in a Mac-only environment that's nice. But nobody else cares.
  
• What are XTI/TLI?
  
• Really? Didn't know that either.
  
• You don't need to, but I'm guessing the integration of the Mac Finder is the primary interest of most people using A/UX.
  
• Yeah...Y2K issues stink. My dateset hack is proof of that. Other than that, though, I can't think of anything that just breaks. Unix is generally fine with dates up until Jan 2038.
  
• Definite weakness.
  
• Again, nice in a Mac environment, but not much else cares.
  
• X11R4 wasn't old when A/UX first came out. But by the time of 3.x, it should have been updated to R5.

 

[porter]

2. the only UNIX that can actually use localtalk!!!!

Netatalk won't cut it for you?

I think he's referring to the physical network, LocalTalk. I don't know if Netatalk does that.

Yes, I did say LocalTalk, so you can in theory make a MacIP gateway out of A/UX (hence why having a UNIX app use AppleTalk is important), short coming is no where to put the IP packets once you have received them, eg no slattach, ppp etc.

NT 3.51 did support a common ISA localtalk card, forget which one now.

 

[z180]

I looked into the A/UX 0.7 archive:

-no sourcecode beside the kernel, a "less" program and GUI samples

-has some kind of interface to the Toolbox ROM that contains the GUI routines

-contains code from Sun OS,BSD,and System V r 2.2

-supports multiple file systems

-I believe that A/UX 1.44mb floppies can be read by Linux via sysv FS module

-no 1.44mb floppies

-runs only on original Mac II

-no need of FPU

-does not support much ram

-is based on Unisoft uniplus UNIX

-no shared libraries

-no BSD FFS code contined,only SYS V FS and NFS

-complete UNIX system binaries and GUI samples contained

-incomplete hardware support,no sound

-works with a NIC called BNET

It could be a good idea to get A/UX binary compatibility into NetBSD :lol:

It is already possible to run SunOS 030 binaries on a 68k mac.

 

[Gorgonops]

Linux does have support for ISA Localtalk cards via the COPS driver. (look for "cops.txt" in the linux/Documentation/networking directory in a kernel source distribution.) The documentation was never great, but supposedly you could use it as a MacIP Gateway as well as run atalkd on it. (I remember seeing a semi-detailed HOWTO on setting that up once, but it was sometime in the late 1990's. The driver's still in the kernel source tree, but whether anyone on the entire planet still uses it is a good question.)

Sort of ironic that Linux (or any of the BSDs) on real Mac hardware can't do the same trick.

 

[ChristTrekker]

It could be a good idea to get A/UX binary compatibility into NetBSD :lol:

Oooo, the NouveAUX project is reborn! :lol: If we can just reverse engineer the Mac ROM, and write a compatibility library for the Toolbox... It would be like WINE! We could call it MINE, or MACE!

 

[z180]

there is a lot of MAC ROM Internals Information available on the web.

The toolbox rom is not reentrant,so multiple apps need some locking,

that is why "copland" provided preemptive multitasking to background tasks only.

The oldest mac that I have is a 6100,so I can't help much.

Oh and I found out that 0.7 doesn't have appletalk code,I was looking at my oldest XNU source then.

Getting HFS/HFS+ support from DARWIN into A/UX is a smaller task.

 

[John8520]

2. the only UNIX that can actually use localtalk!!!!

I thought that since some early Sun machines (thinking sparcstation 5 and 10 era) had the same serial controller as macs, a z80 or something, Sun put localtalk support in early versions of solaris.

 

[Gorgonops]

I thought that since some early Sun machines (thinking sparcstation 5 and 10 era) had the same serial controller as macs, a z80 or something, Sun put localtalk support in early versions of solaris.

I've never seen a Sun with built-in Apple-style serial ports, nor any indication of Appletalk/Localtalk support directly in Solaris. (I own a Sparcstation 5 and an Ultra 10, and have dealt with a pretty wide range of the old boat anchors.) It does appear that there was a company, HELIOS Software, that sold SBus Localtalk cards and matching server software, however. Here's a link to a PDF Datasheet:

http://www.helios.de/pub/datasheets/es25_q_a.pdf

When it comes to hardware, SGI Indy and Indigo2 machines do have Apple-compatible serial ports, down to using the same 8-pin DIN connector:

http://lurkertech.com/lg/deck/serial422.html

I don't know that there was ever a working Localtalk implementation for it. SGI was bundling a limited (demoware, basically) third-party Appletalk client with IRIX but the limited information there is for it floating around suggests it only worked on Ethernet.

 

[porter]

SGI was bundling a limited (demoware, basically) third-party Appletalk client with IRIX but the limited information there is for it floating around suggests it only worked on Ethernet.

IRIX 6.5 had "K-Talk" a limited AppleTalk implementation, I've had it working on ethernet. Similar to netatalk.

 

[Gorgonops]

IRIX 6.5 had "K-Talk" a limited AppleTalk implementation, I've had it working on ethernet. Similar to netatalk.

Yeah, that's the Xinet "demoware" I mentioned. (Calling it "demoware" because according to the sketchy documentation easily found online it looks like it was limited to connecting to a single server unless your upgraded the license.)

Again, no idea if there was ever Localtalk support for those boxes. I have an Indy myself but I haven't turned it on in years (I'm sure the clock/nvram chip is probably dead by now) and the hard disk in it has Linux on it anyway. (I do have an HD with IRIX on it, but the installation that came with the machine was semi-broken and the difficulty inherent in actually getting your hands on IRIX install media and patches pretty much killed my interest in it.)

 

[porter]

I have an Indy myself

I have 2 x R4K6 Indys and an R10K Indigo2.

I reverse engineered the name binding used by K-Talk and got an ADSP daemon running, allowing a Mac to login to an IRIX box using the communications toolbox "ADSP Tool". From memory, I got it working on A/UX as well.

 

[Gorgonops]

I have 2 x R4K6 Indys and an R10K Indigo2.

Heh. If you weren't in New Zealand I'd ask you if you wanted another Indy "Real Cheap". ;^)

(Mine's the big-cache 4K4, I can't remember if it was 150 or 200Mhz. The guy who gave it to me also gave me an R5K CPU and Express graphics card, but I'm missing the PROM upgrade to use the 5K. And using the Express graphics would mean giving up the adapter card that drives the Indy Presenter flat panel, so I've never installed either.)

 

[ChristTrekker]

I have 2 x R4K6 Indys and an R10K Indigo2.

I wish I had an Indigo2, or an O2+. I love the purple case. My only SGI is a low-end (175MHz) R10k O2.

 

[ChristTrekker]

1. really crap shared library support and no mmap() function to roll your own ELF

What kind of shared library support does it have?

3. despite being a System V UNIX, I can't find XTI or TLI

I looked this up and found "X/Open Transport Interface" and "Transport Layer Interface" but I don't really understand what these do.

6. got badly burned with Y2K compliance

In what way?

Commando was a pretty unique feature of A/UX. What would it take to implement that generally?

 

[porter]

What kind of shared library support does it have?

No position independent code. Static libraries are given a fixed address at compile time and can't conflict with other shared libraries. You can only export functions, not data, hence there is a shared library for X11 but not for Xt.

I looked this up and found "X/Open Transport Interface" and "Transport Layer Interface" but I don't really understand what these do.

Is similar to BSD sockets. Not really used any more.

6. got badly burned with Y2K compliance

In what way?

How about the "date" command won't accept any date after 1999?

Commando was a pretty unique feature of A/UX. What would it take to implement that generally?

I must admit I have not looked into it, I imagine it's similar to MPW.