18 Jan
2020
18 Jan
'20
10:48 p.m.
I’ve seen the archives of Atari System V Release 4 for the TT030, and the scanned user and
developer manuals. Has anything else been preserved, e.g. the installation tapes and any
other manuals?
Is there even a full accounting of what was in the box and what shipped afterwards
(patches etc.)?
-- Chris
18 Jan
18 Jan
11:19 p.m.
On Sat, 18 Jan 2020, Chris Hanson wrote:
I’ve seen the archives of Atari System V Release 4 for
the TT030,
and the scanned user and developer manuals. Has anything else been
preserved, e.g. the installation tapes and any other manuals?
Is there even a full accounting of what was in the box and what
shipped afterwards (patches etc.)?
Most of I've seen is the stuff I found while playing with Amiga UNIX,
which is the stuff hosted at atariunix.com. I was able to pull the
Motif (v 1.1.1) bits out of the Atari UNIX disk images and get them
running on Amiga UNIX.
Speaking of old versions of Motif, are the sources for the pre-OpenMotif
bits available anywhere? Even if under lock and key for now, I'd be
happy knowing they'd been preserved for potential future availability.
--
Michael Parson
Pflugerville, TX
KF5LGQ
5 Feb
5 Feb
11:29 p.m.
On Jan 18, 2020, at 3:19 PM, Michael Parson <mparson(a)bl.org> wrote:
Speaking of old versions of Motif, are the sources for the pre-OpenMotif
bits available anywhere? Even if under lock and key for now, I'd be
happy knowing they'd been preserved for potential future availability.
There are Motif 1.1 sources on Bitsavers (or your favorite mirror) at
<http://www.bitsavers.org/bits/OSF/OSF_Motif_Src_1.1.X/
<http://www.bitsavers.org/bits/OSF/OSF_Motif_Src_1.1.X/>>.
-- Chris
6 Feb
6 Feb
3:44 a.m.
On Wed, 5 Feb 2020, Chris Hanson wrote:
On Jan 18, 2020, at 3:19 PM, Michael Parson
<mparson(a)bl.org> wrote:
Thank you!
--
Michael Parson
Pflugerville, TX
KF5LGQ
Speaking of old versions of Motif, are the
sources for the
pre-OpenMotif bits available anywhere? Even if under lock and key
for now, I'd be happy knowing they'd been preserved for potential
future availability.
There are Motif 1.1 sources on Bitsavers (or your favorite mirror)
at <http://www.bitsavers.org/bits/OSF/OSF_Motif_Src_1.1.X/
<http://www.bitsavers.org/bits/OSF/OSF_Motif_Src_1.1.X/>>. 
3:54 a.m.
On Wed, Feb 05, 2020 at 09:44:02PM -0600, Michael Parson wrote:
On Wed, 5 Feb 2020, Chris Hanson wrote:
Part of me is wondering why anyone cares about Motif. My memory of that
is that Xview was better and the Athena widgets were better. Athena was
ugly but it worked, Xview, the X11 version of Sunview, was fantastic to
program in, the argv was a set of 2 tuples, thing and value. And it
looked better. I've written Xview apps and other than the Tk part of
Tcl/Tk, it was the most pleasant GUI API I have used. For the record,
the Tk part of Tcl/Tk is still, decades later, the best GUI interface
I've ever seen. John got that right.
So no offense intended, what about Motif is likeable?
On Jan 18, 2020, at 3:19 PM, Michael Parson
<mparson(a)bl.org> wrote:
Thank you! Speaking of old versions of Motif, are the sources
for the
pre-OpenMotif bits available anywhere? Even if under lock and key
for now, I'd be happy knowing they'd been preserved for potential
future availability.
There are Motif 1.1 sources on Bitsavers (or your favorite mirror)
at <http://www.bitsavers.org/bits/OSF/OSF_Motif_Src_1.1.X/
<http://www.bitsavers.org/bits/OSF/OSF_Motif_Src_1.1.X/>>. 
3:35 p.m.
On 2/5/20 10:54 PM, Larry McVoy wrote:
Part of me is wondering why anyone cares about Motif.
My memory of that
is that Xview was better and the Athena widgets were better.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cj02_UeUnGQ
"A Political History of X" - Keith Packard (LCA 2020)
--
``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer
``Ars longa, vita brevis'' - Hippocrates
Chet Ramey, UTech, CWRU chet(a)case.edu http://tiswww.cwru.edu/~chet/
3:50 p.m.
On 2020-02-05 21:54, Larry McVoy wrote:
On Wed, Feb 05, 2020 at 09:44:02PM -0600, Michael
Parson wrote:
No offense taken. It's not so much that it's "likeable", at least,
any
more than playing with any old software is "likeable". It only crossed
my radar because someone mentioned that it was available for Atari UNIX
(ASV), would those bits be able to be used on Amiga UNIX (AMIX)? I was
able to pull the bits off the ASV images and get them running on AMIX,
but it requires setting LD_LIBRARY_PATH to load the ASV X11 libs, so, I
thought, if I could get my hands on the source, I could compile it
against
the AMIX supplied libs, then maybe try and get Mosaic compiled as well.
--
Michael Parson
Pflugerville, TX
KF5LGQ
On Wed, 5 Feb 2020, Chris Hanson wrote:
Part of me is wondering why anyone cares about Motif. My memory of
that
is that Xview was better and the Athena widgets were better. Athena
was
ugly but it worked, Xview, the X11 version of Sunview, was fantastic to
program in, the argv was a set of 2 tuples, thing and value. And it
looked better. I've written Xview apps and other than the Tk part of
Tcl/Tk, it was the most pleasant GUI API I have used. For the record,
the Tk part of Tcl/Tk is still, decades later, the best GUI interface
I've ever seen. John got that right.
So no offense intended, what about Motif is likeable? On Jan 18, 2020, at 3:19 PM, Michael Parson
<mparson(a)bl.org> wrote:
Thank you! Speaking of old versions of Motif, are the sources
for the
pre-OpenMotif bits available anywhere? Even if under lock and key
for now, I'd be happy knowing they'd been preserved for potential
future availability.
There are Motif 1.1 sources on Bitsavers (or your favorite mirror)
at <http://www.bitsavers.org/bits/OSF/OSF_Motif_Src_1.1.X/
<http://www.bitsavers.org/bits/OSF/OSF_Motif_Src_1.1.X/>>. 
5:58 p.m.
On Thu, Feb 06, 2020 at 09:50:39AM -0600, Michael Parson wrote:
No offense taken. It's not so much that
it's "likeable", at least, any
more than playing with any old software is "likeable". It only crossed
my radar because someone mentioned that it was available for Atari UNIX
(ASV), would those bits be able to be used on Amiga UNIX (AMIX)? I was
Just nitpicking a little :)
I know Amiga UNIX is often referred to as AMIX, but 'in the day' there
was an actual 'AMIX' which was an CBM in-house only port of SVR3.2
to 'A2500UX' labeled machines. (basically 68020+MMU equipped boxes)
These ran the internal email and file distribution network, but was
never publicly released. Quite noticeable as it boots into an ASCII
console with a bright orange background.
Same background that some of the 68020/030 cards boot ROMs show when choosing
the 'boot UNIX' option.
Worked on that old platform for some time.. Part of my projects was to migrate
some of the tools to the 'next version' which was..
The actual product sold as 'Amiga UNIX'. (not 'AMIX' ;) )
This was the SVR4 port in a V1 and V2 version with the latter getting a bunch
of updates to streamline it on the platform.
V1 was really only sold/used to launch-customers while V2 was more
publicly available. (V1 was trivial to hack around the '1 user' base
license with a little 'od' and binary patching ;) )
Interesting issue at the time was that, according to the internal grapevine
at CBM at the time, the Amiga UNIX SVR4 was not m68k ABI compliant, so it
could not run pre-packaged m68k-svr4 software that did use this interface.
Reason was rumoured to be that CBM (in ther never-ending efforts to do
things 'cheap') got the cheapest source license they could get for SVR4 which
AFAIK was for the 3B2 or similar AT&T platform and they did not get an actual
m68k source and license.
Never got that really verified, but I do know that at the time the lack
of support for the m68k ABI was a big hurdle for acceptance.
but it requires setting LD_LIBRARY_PATH to load the
ASV X11 libs, so, I
thought, if I could get my hands on the source, I could compile it against
the AMIX supplied libs, then maybe try and get Mosaic compiled as well.
The SVR4 Amiga UNIX used CDE and all bits for the X11 environment,
so the binaries should all be there.
No sources were available to people outside the CBM UNIX group at the
headquarters at the time, but perhaps they got out onto the net when it
all went down.
The UNIX group inside CBM got disbanded way before they went totally out
of business, so it may have well gone into the shredder at some point.
Quitting the CBM-UNIX group was done very crudely I might add with some of
the guys from the US being over in europe when they got told that they were
fired and their company creditcards got blocked at the same time.. classy...
Bye, Arno.
11:15 p.m.
On Thu, 6 Feb 2020, Arno Griffioen wrote:
The install bits that have survived and escaped onto the Internet have
X11R4 with XView/OpenLook, no Motif/CDE. There was a port of X11R5 to
it that supported some of the newer graphics cards, but still no Motif.
On Thu, Feb 06, 2020 at 09:50:39AM -0600, Michael
Parson wrote:
Neat. This is the first time I've heard of this UNIX from Commodore.
I'd heard of Amiga UNIX, which ran on the A3000 and A2000s with the
appropriate 68020(+MMU) or 030 upgrades, and their failed CBM 900
project, which was based on the Z8001, which was reported to be a port
of MWC Coherent rather than based on the AT&T code.
No offense taken. It's not so much that
it's "likeable", at least, any
more than playing with any old software is "likeable". It only crossed
my radar because someone mentioned that it was available for Atari UNIX
(ASV), would those bits be able to be used on Amiga UNIX (AMIX)? I was
Just nitpicking a little :)
I know Amiga UNIX is often referred to as AMIX, but 'in the day' there
was an actual 'AMIX' which was an CBM in-house only port of SVR3.2 to
'A2500UX' labeled machines. (basically 68020+MMU equipped boxes)
These ran the internal email and file distribution network, but was
never publicly released. Quite noticeable as it boots into an ASCII
console with a bright orange background.
Same background that some of the 68020/030 cards boot ROMs show when
choosing the 'boot UNIX' option. Worked on that old platform for some time.. Part of my
projects was to
migrate some of the tools to the 'next version' which was..
The actual product sold as 'Amiga UNIX'. (not 'AMIX' ;) )
$ uname -a
UNIX_System_V amy 4.0 2.1c 0800430 Amiga (Unlimited) m68k
This was the SVR4 port in a V1 and V2 version with the
latter getting
a bunch of updates to streamline it on the platform.
V1 was really only sold/used to launch-customers while V2 was more
publicly available. (V1 was trivial to hack around the '1 user' base
license with a little 'od' and binary patching ;) )
Interesting issue at the time was that, according to the internal
grapevine at CBM at the time, the Amiga UNIX SVR4 was not m68k ABI
compliant, so it could not run pre-packaged m68k-svr4 software that
did use this interface.
The docs claim that there was an attempt to make it ABI compliant, but
the ABI wasn't "finalized" or something, so, future compatibility was
not guaranteed.
Reason was rumoured to be that CBM (in ther
never-ending efforts to
do things 'cheap') got the cheapest source license they could get for
SVR4 which AFAIK was for the 3B2 or similar AT&T platform and they did
not get an actual m68k source and license.
Never got that really verified, but I do know that at the time the
lack of support for the m68k ABI was a big hurdle for acceptance.
*shrug* Atari UNIX and Amiga UNIX seem close enough that some stuff
compiled on Atari works on the Amiga.
Out of curiosity, how much m68k SysV software was out there?
but it
requires setting LD_LIBRARY_PATH to load the ASV X11 libs, so,
I thought, if I could get my hands on the source, I could compile
it against the AMIX supplied libs, then maybe try and get Mosaic
compiled as well.
The SVR4 Amiga UNIX used CDE and all bits for the X11 environment, so
the binaries should all be there. No sources were available to people outside the CBM
UNIX group at the
headquarters at the time, but perhaps they got out onto the net when
it all went down.
Would be cool if someone found a tape and got it in the right hands.
The UNIX group inside CBM got disbanded way before
they went totally
out of business, so it may have well gone into the shredder at some
point.
Rumors were that *the* box that had the source on it crashed. Sounded
like a ridiculous reason to me, but that's what I'd heard.
Quitting the CBM-UNIX group was done very crudely I
might add with
some of the guys from the US being over in europe when they got told
that they were fired and their company creditcards got blocked at the
same time.. classy...
From what I've heard about the last days of
Commodore under Mehdi Ali,
this doesn't surprise me.
--
Michael Parson
Pflugerville, TX
KF5LGQ
7 Feb
7 Feb
11:53 a.m.
On Thu, Feb 06, 2020 at 05:15:23PM -0600, Michael Parson wrote:
A decent amount, at least for basic productivity software (accounting, etc.)
and compilers and such. Nothing spectacular, but would have given at least
an initial library of basic tools.
Ah.. Yes you are right.. De distribution tape only has XView. CDE I probably
only saw on an in-house demo of.
I remember it was terribly slow though, especially with the limited RAM
capacity at the time of max 16MB and a 25Mhz '030, which was already showing
it's age by now and should really have been an '040 with the option
of (much) more RAM.
Bye, Arno.
Never got that
really verified, but I do know that at the time the
lack of support for the m68k ABI was a big hurdle for acceptance.
*shrug* Atari UNIX and Amiga UNIX seem close enough that some stuff
compiled on Atari works on the Amiga.
Out of curiosity, how much m68k SysV software was out there? The SVR4 Amiga
UNIX used CDE and all bits for the X11 environment, so
the binaries should all be there.
The install bits that have survived and escaped onto the Internet have
X11R4 with XView/OpenLook, no Motif/CDE. There was a port of X11R5 to
it that supported some of the newer graphics cards, but still no Motif. 
6 Feb
6 Feb
4:02 a.m.
On Sat, 18 Jan 2020 at 18:20, Michael Parson <mparson(a)bl.org> wrote:
On Sat, 18 Jan 2020, Chris Hanson wrote:
I have a QIC-150 cartridge of Motif 1.2.1 (labeled "patch release", so
perhaps not a complete source tree?) but do not have a working drive that
will read it. I attempted to contact Al Kossow about reading it but was
unsuccessful. If you would be able to read it I would be happy to send it
to you.
-Henry
I’ve seen the archives of Atari System V Release
4 for the TT030,
and the scanned user and developer manuals. Has anything else been
preserved, e.g. the installation tapes and any other manuals?
Is there even a full accounting of what was in the box and what
shipped afterwards (patches etc.)?
Most of I've seen is the stuff I found while playing with Amiga UNIX,
which is the stuff hosted at atariunix.com. I was able to pull the
Motif (v 1.1.1) bits out of the Atari UNIX disk images and get them
running on Amiga UNIX.
Speaking of old versions of Motif, are the sources for the pre-OpenMotif
bits available anywhere? Even if under lock and key for now, I'd be
happy knowing they'd been preserved for potential future availability.
5:05 a.m.
I have two qic-150 drives. Contact me off list. Clem
On Wed, Feb 5, 2020 at 8:03 PM Henry Bent <henry.r.bent(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On Sat, 18 Jan 2020 at 18:20, Michael Parson
<mparson(a)bl.org> wrote:
--
Sent from a handheld expect more typos than usual
On Sat, 18 Jan 2020, Chris Hanson wrote:
I have a QIC-150 cartridge of Motif 1.2.1 (labeled "patch release", so
perhaps not a complete source tree?) but do not have a working drive that
will read it. I attempted to contact Al Kossow about reading it but was
unsuccessful. If you would be able to read it I would be happy to send it
to you.
-Henry
I’ve seen the archives of Atari System V Release
4 for the TT030,
and the scanned user and developer manuals. Has anything else been
preserved, e.g. the installation tapes and any other manuals?
Is there even a full accounting of what was in the box and what
shipped afterwards (patches etc.)?
Most of I've seen is the stuff I found while playing with Amiga UNIX,
which is the stuff hosted at atariunix.com. I was able to pull the
Motif (v 1.1.1) bits out of the Atari UNIX disk images and get them
running on Amiga UNIX.
Speaking of old versions of Motif, are the sources for the pre-OpenMotif
bits available anywhere? Even if under lock and key for now, I'd be
happy knowing they'd been preserved for potential future availability.
18 Jan
18 Jan
11:27 p.m.
Wow, never knew Atari was involved in anything like UNIX.
Thank you!
On 1/18/2020 5:48 PM, Chris Hanson wrote:
I’ve seen the archives of Atari System V Release 4 for
the TT030, and the scanned user and developer manuals. Has anything else been preserved,
e.g. the installation tapes and any other manuals?
Is there even a full accounting of what was in the box and what shipped afterwards
(patches etc.)?
-- Chris
1533
days inactive
1553
days old
12 comments
8 participants
participants (8)
-
Arno Griffioen -
Arthur Krewat -
Chet Ramey -
Chris Hanson -
Clem Cole -
Henry Bent -
Larry McVoy -
Michael Parson