NetBSD 6.0 released!

yay

  • SMP support for Xen domU kernels, initial suspend/resume support for Xen domU, PCI pass-through support for Xen3, and addition of the balloon driver.
  • Major rework of MIPS port adding support for SMP and 64-bit (O32, N32, N64 ABIs are supported) processors, DSP v2 ASE extension, various NetLogic/RMI processor models, Loongson family processors, and new SoC boards.
  • Improved SMP on PowerPC port and added support for Book E Freescale MPC85xx (e500 core) processors.
  • ARM has gained support for Cortex-A8 processors, various new SoCs, and initial support for Raspberry Pi. Full support for Raspberry Pi and major ARM improvements to come in a future NetBSD release.
  • time_t is now a 64-bit quantity on all NetBSD ports. This means that the NetBSD world no longer ends in 2037.

Interesting they addressed the 2038 issue… And more SMP support…

So I had to move providers again.

I don’t know what on earth is going on with all these VPS providers getting DDOS’d as of late.. So here I am on VPS #4.  I lost my last post so I’ll have to recreate it later on.

Right now I’m just trying to get my old vpsland archive back online.  Sadly my DSL is rate limited to a whopping 64KB/sec so this will take … a long long while.

Thankfully I had a recent-ish backup of my blog, so all is well there!

Just to let people know I’m still alive!

Sorry I’ve spent so much time looking for that old OS/2 beta stuff, I didn’t realize it has been a while since I posted…

In the meantime I was working up something about the evolution of Windows 3.0, to 3.0a and the multimedia version, along with what features I’ve been able to discern about the OS/2 2.0 beta..  Like did you know that MS was going to put TrueType fonts in it?  I guess that is why IBM went with Adobe..

And of course there was no plans for SOM, or the Object desktop in OS/2 2.0 it was going to look/feel more like OS/2 1.21 or Windows 3.0 than what eventually shipped as OS/2 2.0  .

I don’t know what it is interesting about that time period… And I scored a real copy of OS/2 2.0 for $5, I was going to do more of a teardown of that, once I get some kind of scanner… Or maybe try to flip it on ebay in some kind of workable manner vs being old dead stuff in a box?

I donno.

Running ‘ancient’ linux binaries on modern systems

I just found out about this page which mentions me and my old iBCS/NetBSD adventure to running Xenix binaries on NetBSD 4.x (Sadly 5.x broke xcoff).  In there they also refer to this old redhat page on running a.out binaries on newish systems.

Apparently the ability to run old a.out stuff is still present as Alan Cox notes that “my 3.6rc kernel will still run a Rogue binary built in 1992. X is back compatible to apps far older than Linux.

I’ll have to investigate later on.

So I managed to score 2/3’rds of the most rare version of OS/2 ever

Thats right I’m talking about the Microsoft OS/2 2.0 beta.

This is the badboy that cost some $2,600 back in 1989/1990 and its stall basically split up the IBM Microsoft OS/2 alliance.

Sadly I don’t have volume 1 (although the binder spine says so, I have to wonder if the binders were reorganized) so I don’t have any media, nor the overview stuff, just the API’s for the UI & Networking and some general API stuff.  There is no mention of SOM or Workplace shell, so clearly this is stuff IBM added on their own.

It seems if MS & IBM had not dragged so slowly with 2.0 it really could have been pushed out in 1990, instead Microsoft basically gave up on Cruiser and pushed forward with Windows 3.0 which it controlled all the way.  And of course if IBM had allowed Microsoft to control the GUI side, OS/2 would have been far more NT’ish from the getgo.  Oh well instead we were denied any decent OS until what? 1994 on the Microsoft side with NT 3.5 although of course it was closer to 1996 with NT 4.0 did it even matter by then.  OS/2 was quite usable at the 2.0 level, but it was delayed with the advent of Windows 3.0 and OS/2 HAD to run Windows apps or it’d never go anywhere.

So here is some camera phone pictures of what materials I have on this rare version.  Naturally if anyone actually has Volume 1 or the media set feel free to contact me!!!

 

The binders

Operating System/2 Programmer’s Reference Volume 3 version 2.0

SY13869-0590 / May of 1990

I’ve also found these snippits from Infoworld going back to 1989..

One interesting thing seems that once Microsoft abandoned OS/2 2.0 the kernel never seemed to have changed as you still can load 16bit device drivers so it feels as if all development in that space froze until the ill fated botched port to L4.

Microsoft OS/2 1.21 on Qemu (almost works)

It almost works.

I just tried commenting out the IDE CD-ROM that is on by default on Qemu, and booted up a ‘restore’ CD I cooked up a while ago, and lo it almost works.  OS/2 boots up, but the keyboard is unresponsive… The cursor flashes away it almost acts like it is alive but without any input it just sits there dead.

I haven’t tried booting from floppy although I would assume it’d fail just in the same manner.  For anyone wanting to mess with it, just disable the cdrom in vl.c & recompile.

Qemu 1.2 released!

So this is good news, as always you can check out the change log, or download the source and compile yourself…

Using my quick instructions on building on OS X, I got 1.2 to compile which is nice, and run DOOM..

As you can see from this output it isn’t relying on the TCG backend

$ ./configure –audio-card-list=ac97,es1370,sb16,adlib,hda,gus –disable-curl –target-list=i386-softmmu
Silently falling back into gthread backend under darwin
Install prefix /usr/local
BIOS directory /usr/local/share/qemu
binary directory /usr/local/bin
library directory /usr/local/lib
include directory /usr/local/include
config directory /usr/local/etc
Manual directory /usr/local/share/man
ELF interp prefix /usr/gnemul/qemu-%M
Source path /Users/neozeed/src/qemu-1.2.0
C compiler gcc
Host C compiler gcc
Objective-C compiler clang
CFLAGS -O2 -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -g
QEMU_CFLAGS -m64 -DOS_OBJECT_USE_OBJC=0 -arch x86_64 -D_GNU_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE -Wstrict-prototypes -Wredundant-decls -Wall -Wundef -Wwrite-strings -Wmissing-prototypes -fno-strict-aliasing -fstack-protector-all -Wendif-labels -Wmissing-include-dirs -Wempty-body -Wnested-externs -Wformat-security -Wformat-y2k -Winit-self -Wold-style-definition
LDFLAGS -m64 -framework CoreFoundation -framework IOKit -arch x86_64 -g
make make
install install
python python
smbd /usr/sbin/smbd
host CPU x86_64
host big endian no
target list i386-softmmu
tcg debug enabled no
gprof enabled no
sparse enabled no
strip binaries yes
profiler no
static build no
-Werror enabled no
Cocoa support yes
SDL support no
curses support yes
curl support no
mingw32 support no
Audio drivers coreaudio
Extra audio cards ac97 es1370 sb16 adlib hda gus
Block whitelist
Mixer emulation no
VirtFS support no
VNC support yes
VNC TLS support no
VNC SASL support yes
VNC JPEG support no
VNC PNG support no
xen support no
brlapi support no
bluez support no
Documentation yes
NPTL support no
GUEST_BASE yes
PIE no
vde support no
Linux AIO support no
ATTR/XATTR support no
Install blobs yes
KVM support no
TCG interpreter no
fdt support no
preadv support no
fdatasync no
madvise yes
posix_madvise yes
uuid support no
libcap-ng support no
vhost-net support no
Trace backend nop
Trace output file trace-<pid>
spice support no
rbd support no
xfsctl support no
nss used no
usb net redir no
OpenGL support no
libiscsi support no
build guest agent yes
seccomp support no
coroutine backend

So far it looks good on OS X, so here is my i386 binary!  Although I’ve only tested it with MS-DOS 4.01 & Doom 1.1

Doom 1.1 on OS X 10.8.1 via Qemu 1.2.0

 

Qemu 1.2.0 & all its win32 glory

And after much delay, here is my Win32 binary for the i386 system emulation.  And just like the OS X version, I’ve only tested it with Doom.  I’ve included my usual control-alt-delete shortcut & the ability to quick reset.

Found an old ad for 86-DOS

Seattle 86 Ad

GO 16-BIT NOW – WE HAVE MADE IT EASY
8086
8 Mhz. 2-card CPU Set
WITH 86-DOS®
ASSEMBLED,TESTED,GUARANTEED
With our 2-card 8086 CPU set you can upgrade your Z80 8-
bit S-100 system to run three times as fast by swapping the
CPUs. lf you use our 16-bit memory, it will run five times as
fast. Up to 64K of your static 8-bit memory may be used in the
8086’s 1-megabyte addressing range. A switch allows either 4
or 8 Mhz. operation. Memory access requirements at 4 Mhz.
exceed 500 nsec.
The EPROM monitor allows you to display, alter, and
search memory, do inputs and outputs, and boot your disk.
Debugging aids include register display and change, single
stepping, and execute with breakpoints.
The set includes a serial port with programmable baud rate,
four independent programmable 16-bit timers (two may be
combined for a time-of-day clock), a parallel in and parallel out
port, and an interrupt controller with 15 inputs. External power
may be applied to the timers to maintain the clock during
system power-off time. Total power: 2 amps at + 8V, less than
100 mao at + 16V and at -16V.
86-DOS@>, our $195 8086 single user disk operating
system, is provided without additional charge. It allows
functions such as console 1/0 of characters and strings, and
random or sequencial reading and writing to named disk files .
While it has a different format from CPIM, it performs similar
calls plus some extensions (CP/M is a registered trademark of
Digital Research Corporation). Its construction allows relatively
easy configuration of 1/0 to different hardware. Directly
supported are the Tarbell and Cromemco disk controllers.
The 86-D08@> package includes an 8086 resident assembler,
a Z80 to 8086 source code translator, a utility to read
files written in CPIM and convert them to the 86-DOS format, a
line editor, and disk maintenance utilities. Of significance to
Z80 users is the ability of the translator to accept Z80 source
code written for CPIM, translate this to 8086 source code,
assemble the source code, and then run the program on the
8086 processor under 86-D08. This allows the conversion of
any Z80 program, for which source code is available, to run on
the much higher performance 8086.
BASIC-86 by Microsoft is available for the 8086 at $350.
Several firms are working on application programs. Call for
current software status.
All software licensed for use on a single computer only.
Non-disclosure agreements required. Shipping from stock to
one week. Bank cards, personal checks, CODs okay. There is
a 10-day return privilege. All boards are guaranteed one year
– both parts and labor. Shipped prepaid by air in US and
Canada. Foreign purchases must be prepaid in US funds.
Also add $10 per board for overseas air shipment.
8/16 16-BIT MEMORY
This board was designed for the 1980s. It is configured as
16K by 8 bits when accessed by an 8-bit processor and
configured 8K by 16 bits when used with a 16-bit processor.
The configuration switching is automatic and is done by the
card sampling the “sixteen request” signal sent out by all S-
100 IEEE 16-bit CPU boards. The card has all the high noise
immunity features of our well known PLUS RAM cards as well
as “extended addressing”. Extended addressing is a replacement
for bank select. It makes use of a total of 24 address lines
to give a directly addressable range of over 16 megabytes.
(For older systems, a switch will cause the card to ignore the
top 8 address lines.) This card ensures that your memory
board purchase will not soon be obsolete. It is guaranteed to
run without wait states with our 8086 CPU set using an 8 Mhz.
clock. Shipped from stock. Prices: 1-4, $280; 5-9, $260; 10-up,
$240.

~Seattle (amputer Products, Inc. ~ 1114 Industry Drive, Seattle, WA. 98188
(206) 575-1830

 

The ad is from December of 1980, and of course the PC was released in August of 1981… Its interesting to see even back then there was some clear partnering with Microsoft!