NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #19

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Internet Message Format | 1992-08-26 | 14.3 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!haven.umd.edu!darwin.sura.net!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!malgudi.oar.net!caen!uwm.edu!ogicse!das-news.harvard.edu!cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!crabapple.srv.cs.cmu.edu!andrew.cmu.edu!rh2y+ From: rh2y+@andrew.cmu.edu (Russell E. Hoffman, II) Newsgroups: comp.os.os9 Subject: FAQ 3rd rev. Message-ID: <Ieay14_00VID819VBX@andrew.cmu.edu> Date: 26 Aug 92 11:49:24 GMT Article-I.D.: andrew.Ieay14_00VID819VBX Organization: Junior, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA Lines: 371 Well, time for the third revision of the OS9/68000 faq. Again, if there are any additions or corrections, please respond in kind to me, Russell Hoffman, rh2y+@andrew.cmu.edu The New and Improved OS9 Frequently-Asked Questions List Q: What is OS9? A: OS9 is a real-time, multiuser, multitasking operating system developed by Microware Systems Corporation. It was originally developed for the 6809 microprocessor, in a joint effort between Microware and Motorola. The original Level I 6809 OS9 OS was capable of addressing 64 kilobytes of memory. The Level II 6809 OS9 took advantage of dynamic address translation hardware, and allowed a mapped address space of one megabyte on most systems, and up to two megabytes on others, most notably the Tandy Color Computer III. In the 1980's, Microware ported OS9 to the 68000 family of microprocessors, creating OS9/68000. Code is mostly portable from OS9/6809 to OS9/68000 at the high-level-language source code level. Code is compatible within either OS9/6809 or OS9/68000 at the binary level. OS9/68000 provides synchronization and mutual exclusion primitives in the form of events, which are similar to semaphores. It also allows communication between processes in the form of named and unnamed pipes, as well as shared memory in the form of data modules. OS9 is modular, allowing new devices to be added to the system simply by writing new device drivers, or if a similar device already exists, by simply creating a new device descriptor. All i/o devices can be treated as files, which unifies the i/o system. In addition, the kernel and all user programs are ROMable. Thus, OS9 can run on any 680x0 based hardware platform from simple diskless embedded control systems to large multiuser minicomputers. Q: What is OSK? A: OSK is an abbreviation for OS9/68000. This is probably due to the common abbreviation '68k' for the 68000 microprocessor. Also sometimes called OS9/68k. Q: Where can I get OS9? A: Generally the hardware vendor will ship a version of OS9 with the product upon which OS9 is intended to be run. Alternatively, OS9 can be purchased from Microware itself, for certain hardware platforms. The address is: Microware Systems Corporation 1900 N.W. 114th Street Des Moines, Iowa 50322 Phone: (515) 224-1929 Fax: +1 (515) 224-1352 Microware Systems Corporation Western Regional Office 2041 Mission College Boulevard Santa Clara, California 95054 Phone: +1 (408) 980-0201 Fax: +1 (408) 980-1671 Northeastern Regional Office One Crank Rd Hampton Falls, NH 03844 (603)929-4107 (603)929-4233 fax Southeastern Regional Office P.O. Box 510358 Melbourne Beach, FL 32951-0358 (407)725-2840 (407)725-2487 fax Microware Systems (UK) Limited Leylands Farm, Nobs Crook Colden Common Winchester, Hants. England, SO21 1TH Phone: +44 703 601990 Fax: +44 703 601991 Microware Systems K.K. 17-3, Sotokanda 2-Chome Chiyoda-Ku Tokyo 101, Japan Phone: +81 3-3257-9000 Fax: +81 3-3257-9200 Microware Systems France Chateau de la Saurine Pont de Bayeux 13590 Meyreuil France Phone: +33 42 58 63 00 Fax: +33 42 58 62 28 In addition, several software vendors sell customized and enhanced OS9 packages. One such vendor is Ultrascience. Their address is: Ultrascience Box 847 Wheeling, Illinois 60090 USA (708)-808-9060 FAX: (708)-808-9061 Also, in Switzerland, ELSOFT AG: ELSOFT AG Zelgweg 12 CH-5405 Baden-Daettwil Tel. +41 56 83 33 77 Fax. +41 56 83 30 20 Q: What machines run OS9? A: OS9/6809 runs on a variety of platforms, perhaps the most (in)famous being the Tandy Color Computer. Other systems include the SWTPC SCB-69, the Gimix 6809, Smoke Signal Broadcasting's Chieftain 6809, FHL's TC09, the Febe, and many others, most of which are SS-50 bus machines. Note that OS9/6809 is no longer supported by Microware, but many user groups, BBSes, and a handful of FTP sites offer help and maintain software collections for OS9/6809. OS9/68000 runs on quite a multitude of machines, including a variety of systems from Hazelwood (such as the UniQuad I and II), the Gimix Micro-20, the Atari ST, Commodore Amiga, Apple Macintosh, IMS MM/1, FHL TC-70, and a large number of 680x0-based VME systems, manufactured by such companies as Radstone Technology, Motorola, Heurikon, Inducom, Force, Mizar, and others. Gespac also makes a large number of platforms based on their G-64 and G-96 bus. Q: Where do I get OS9/68000 for the Macintosh? A: Ultrascience (A division of Gibbs Laboratories) makes a version of OS9/68000 for the Macintosh. According to their literature, it even allows the Macintosh operating system to run as a process under OS9. Their address is: Ultrascience Box 847 Wheeling, Illinois 60090 USA (708)-808-9060 FAX: (708)-808-9061 Q: Where do I get OS9/68000 for the Commodore Amiga? A: Digby Tarvin, Technical Director Tesseract PTY. Ltd Computer Consultants 53 George St. Redfern, New South Wales Australia, 2016 Fax: 011-61-2-698-8881 Email: digbyt@runxtsa.runx.oz.au Price is approximately $600 US Q: Where do I get OS9/68000 for the Atari ST? A: Cumana and Dr. Keil offer two different ports of OS9 to the ST. Cumana Ltd. The Pines Trading Estate Broad Street Guildford Surrey England, GU3 3BH Phone: +44 483 503121 Fax: +44 483 503326 Dr. R. Keil GmbH Gerhart-Hauptmann-Str. 30 D-6915 Dossenheim Tel. +49 6221 86 20 91 Fax. +49 6221 86 19 54 Q: What is OS-9000? A: OS-9000 is a portable version of OS9, written primarily in C. It can potentially run on any 68020 or higher 680x0 family member, and any 80386sx or higher 80x86 member. Code is portable across OS-9000 platforms at the source level. Theoretically, OS-9000 can be ported to any modern computer architecture, though 680x0 and 80x86 are the only supported microprocessor families at present. Q: What software is available for OS9? A: Nearly any user application can be found either commercially or in the public domain/shareware/freeware. Many word-processor, spreadsheets, databases, and time management software packages are available from a variety of vendors. A list of much of the available commercial software is available from Microware. They publish the "OS9 Sourcebook", a listing of hardware and software vendors who sell both 6809 and 68000 software and hardware. It is advisable to contact the individual companies listed in the Sourcebook and request a recent catalog, as the information in the Sourcebook is a tad outdated. Microware's quarterly magazine Pipelines also carries new product announcements. Q: Where can I get public-domain/shareware/freeware software for OS9? A: There are many private bulletin boards around. Hopefully, someone will be publishing a list of all known BBSes which have OS9 software. In addition, there is the Princeton Listserver, which acts as a mailing server that will mail requested software. To begin using the Listserver, send electronic mail to LISTSERV@PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU, with the single line HELP in your message. Finally, there are a few anonymous FTP servers worldwide with OS9 software on them. Site Operator IP address ------------------ ------------ ------------- hermit.cs.wisc.edu Jim Pruyne 128.105.8.24 wuarchive.wustl.edu Steve Wegert 128.252.135.4 lucy.ifi.unibas.ch Marc Balmer 131.152.81.1 Don't forget the often overlooked mailserver on hermit. The e-mail address is os9archive@hermit.cs.wisc.edu, and a message with "help" as the body will return some help text. This provides a way for those without FTP access to snarf stuff from hermit via mail. Hermit contains mostly OS9/68000 software, including the complete TOP package, many EFFO disks, GCC and G++, (and many other GNU products), ka9q, TeX, and quite a bit of 6809 software. Wuarchive has mostly 6809 OS9 software; Lucy is meant to be a european duplicate of hermit. Q: What is the TOP package? A: TOP is an acronym for "The OS9 Project". It is a collection of OS9/68000 software developed primarily in Germany. Much of it seems to be an attempt to make OS9 a little more UNIX-like. Many standard unix utilities are provided, as well as a complete UUCP mail implementation, and a more secure password file and login program. Many traditional unix games are also provided. The total package consumes approximately 16 MB of disk space, though much of this is source code. Q: Are there alternative shells for OS9? A: Yes, there are. Microware sells mshell, an enhanced shell. In addition, there are several public domain shells available. The most notable of which is the Bourne shell, sh, available in the TOP package (OS9/68000). It supports aliasing, command-line editing, history, environment variable replacement, shell scripting, the `command` operator (which uses the output of the command as arguments to the called program), and a startup file. For OS9/6809, there is Shell+ and of course if you have a Color Computer, there is always Gshell, a graphical shell. Q: Can one read/write MS-DOS format disks under OS9? A: Yes, there are several public-domain and commercially avaliable utilities to accomplish this task, for both OS9/6809 and OSK. One of the more interesting is the MSFM file manager which appears in _OS9_Insights_, a book by Peter Dibble, available through Microware. MSFM is an actual file manager, which allows you to mount an MS-DOS floppy as part of the OS9 file system. Q: What sorts of communications software is available? A: Many public domain utilities, available from your local BBS, include terminal emulators and file transfer utilities (such as xmodem, ymodem, zmodem, and kermit protocols.) Sterm, a non-commercial package, also supports Compuserve B+ protocol. In addition, many software vendors sell various equivalent packages. C-kermit is available in source and executable form for OS9/68000 on hermit. Also, Microware sells the NFM Network File Manager, which is a local-area networking protocol for small networks of strictly OS9 based computers. NFM runs on virtually any network interface, including direct serial links, ARCnet, Ethernet, and others. Microware also sells the ISP, or Internet Support Package, which is a relatively complete TCP/IP package, including telnet client and server apllications, and FTP client and server. It also provides a C BSD 4.2 compatible socket library. Closely related is the ESP, or Ethernet Support Package. This is similar to ISP, but is for particular Ethernet boards. ISP supports Ethernet and SLIP. Microware also sells NFS, or Network File System, for OS9/68000. This allows an OS9 system to share files in a homogeneous environment (i.e. not all the machines on the network run OS9.) NFS requires ISP or ESP. Finally, there is a port of the Phil Karn ka9q internet software package, which supports a single-user interface to TCP/IP. It includes a telnet client, an FTP client and server, and SMTP. Source and executables may be found on hermit. Note that the executables on hermit have a bug in the FTP server which causes it to bus trap occasionally. Hopefully someone will take the time to find this and correct it. Q: What about usenet and news? A: Several ports of UUCP software are available for both os9/6809 and os9/68k. A port of C news and Rn are available on hermit. TOP has ported Notes, which maintains Notesfiles. There is a program which will transfer between Notesfiles and netnews. The TOP package in its entirety may be found on hermit. Rick Adams' UUCP port for the Color Computer may be found on wuarchive, as well as on Delphi and Compuserve. Q: Is gcc available for OS9? A: gcc and g++ are available for OS9/68000, both in OS9 executable form and cross-compiler form. Versions 1.37, 1.39 and 1.40 were ported to OS9/68000 primarily via the work of Stephan Paschedag. Source and binaries are available on hermit.cs.wisc.edu via anonymous FTP. The 1.40 version supports 68040 optimizations. Q: Can I run X11 on OS9? A: Yes. Microware sells a port of X11R4 (client and server plus optional Motif) , as well as do Eltek Electronik GmbH. Eltek's address is: Galileo-Galilei-Strasse 11 D-6500 Mainz 42 Germany Phone: (6131) 588-0 fax: (6131) 588-199 Q: What other graphics alternatives are there? A: Several other organizations have various graphics packages for OS9. Reccoware systems has a port of the Bellcore MGR window manager. Gespac produces G-windows, a portable windowing package which has device windows and a very Motif-looking interface. For the MM/1, Interactive Media Systems is producing K-windows, window manager similar to Multi-Vue, the OS9 window package for the Tandy Color Computer III. Microware also sells RAVE, the Real-Time Audio Video Environment. Reccoware Systems address: Reccoware Systems Wolfgang Ocker Lochhauser Strasse 35a D-8039 Puchheim Voice: +49 89 80 77 02 Fax: +49 89 80 29 67 To contact Gespac, call toll-free 1-800-4GESPAC To contact IMS, write: Interactive Media Systems 238 Catawba Avenue, Davidson, North Carolina 28036 704/892-6233 or IMS SALES 1840 Biltmore Street NW Suite 10 Washington DC 20009 phone:(202) 232-4246 Q: What is a Real Time system? A: A real-time system is any system whose correctness depends not only on the correctness of the applied algorithms, but also in the timing of the execution of those algorithms. Refer to the netnews comp.realtime newsgroup for more information. Q: Does OS9 support multiple threads within a program? A: No, not directly like Mach does, but through the use of user installed periodic interrupts or alarms, a user program can support it's own threads. Consult a good operating systems book for more details. (The author of this FAQ had to do something like this for an OS assignment using periodic signals in Unix, which also does not support multiple threads, so I know it can be done)