27 May
2022
27 May
'22
11:57 a.m.
I came across a website that discusses reviving an old binary for Lotus 1-2-3 for SysV
Unix (386 COFF), on the way to making it run on Linux:
https://lock.cmpxchg8b.com/linux123.html
The audience here may enjoy the read, and maybe it is of use when reviving other old
application software for 1980’s and 1990’s Unix.
The key part I think is this:
Quote:
"Yikes - it’s an original unstripped object file from 1-2-3. There are nearly 20,000
symbols including private symbols and debug information.
Why would Lotus ship this? It’s so big it must have required them to phyiscally ship an
extra disk to every customer? Could it have been a mistake, accidentally left on the final
release image?
I had so many questions, but I’m not old enough to have any experience with SysV, so I
asked the greybeards on alt.folklore.computers if they had seen this before and why this
might have happened.
The answer was that this is probably deliberate - dlopen() was not widely available on
UNIX in the early 90s, so there was no easy way to load native plugins or extensions. To
solve this, vendors would ship a bunch of partially linked object files with a script to
relink them with your extensions – Clever!"
27 May
27 May
5 p.m.
On 5/27/22 5:57 AM, Paul Ruizendaal wrote:
I came across a website that discusses reviving an old
binary for Lotus
1-2-3 for SysV Unix (386 COFF), on the way to making it run on Linux:
https://lock.cmpxchg8b.com/linux123.html
Yep. That is a very interesting article.
Though I do think that some of what Tavis did was borderline
exceptional. I don't know many people that would consider writing their
own object utility to do things. But this just goes to show what is
possible if you are willing to do so.
The audience here may enjoy the read, and maybe it is
of use when
reviving other old application software for 1980’s and 1990’s Unix.
I've filed it away for future reference for this very reason.
--
Grant. . . .
unix || die
5:29 p.m.
On Fri, May 27, 2022 at 11:00 AM Grant Taylor via TUHS <tuhs(a)tuhs.org>
wrote:
Yea, it's quite interesting...
On 5/27/22 5:57 AM, Paul Ruizendaal wrote:
People working on emulators run into these issues all the time as well.
There was a greater diversity of object formats when Unix was younger
as well, most have been displaced by ELF (PECOFF being the only exception
that's still around outside of Windows).
Also people that try to decompile things back into .o files run into these
issues as well... There's been efforts over the years to extract different
kinds
of drivers from old binary-only kernels, for example, that have met with
differing
degrees of success. Though putting the relocation info back in after the
fact can be quite tricky... The successful ones I know of disassembled and
reassembled to cope with this issue after some post-processing phase to
cope with places where there were tables...
I came across a website that discusses reviving
an old binary for Lotus
1-2-3 for SysV Unix (386 COFF), on the way to making it run on Linux:
https://lock.cmpxchg8b.com/linux123.html
Yep. That is a very interesting article.
Though I do think that some of what Tavis did was borderline
exceptional. I don't know many people that would consider writing their
own object utility to do things. But this just goes to show what is
possible if you are willing to do so.
The audience
here may enjoy the read, and maybe it is of use when
reviving other old application software for 1980’s and 1990’s Unix.
I've filed it away for future reference for this very reason.
28 May
28 May
3:30 p.m.
On 5/27/22, Warner Losh <imp(a)bsdimp.com> wrote:
People working on emulators run into these issues all the time as well.
There was a greater diversity of object formats when Unix was younger
as well, most have been displaced by ELF (PECOFF being the only exception
that's still around outside of Windows).
The object formats that I'm aware of on Unix are:
a.out - comes in three flavors:
OMAGIC - executable instructions (text) and static data in the same section
NMAGIC - text separate from data; shared text
ZMAGIC - text separate from data; demand paged
MACH-O - Object and executable format for the MACH microkernel. This
is still the object format used by the Mac OS X operating system,
which IIRC was built by placing FreeBSD Unix on top of the MACH
microkernel. It allows more than the three sections (.text, .data,
.bss) in a.out.
COFF - Common Object File Format. Allows up to 64 object fsections.
ELF - Executable and Linkable Format. Much more uniform (everything
is a section) than its predecessors, and allows essentially an
arbitrary number of sections. In addition to its use on Unix, this is
the object file and executable format used by Linux and OpenVMS (on
Itanium and x86).
Are there others?
PECOFF, Portable Executable and Common Object File Format, is the
object file and executable format used by Microsoft Windows. It is a
derivative of COFF, but, in typical Microsoft embrace-and-extend
fashion, there are significant differences. When Windows NT was
ported to the DEC Alpha processor, I had to add PECOFF support to
DEC's GEM compiler back end. I started by adding conditional code to
the existing COFF support, but I found that PECOFF differed enough
from vanilla COFF that it was easier and more maintainable to fork off
a separate module for it.
-Paul W.
10:06 p.m.
New subject: Anyone have an interest in really old analog multimeters and a vacuum tube tested circa 1960s or 1950s?
I have a party in Hightstown NJ
Looking to donate them.
Will follow up with specs.
They already contacted the radio museum in Wall NJ
I told them to try VCF since they should be a separate organization.
10:09 p.m.
New subject: Anyone have an interest in really old analog multimeters and a vacuum tube tested circa 1960s or 1950s?
Details
1) Knight Allied Radio volt meter 446-06235
2) Precision Apparatus series 85 volt meter
3) Weston Model 676 Tube checker
Useful as display pieces
Presumed to all be functional.
On Sat, May 28, 2022, 6:06 PM Kenneth Goodwin <kennethgoodwin56(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
I have a party in Hightstown NJ
Looking to donate them.
Will follow up with specs.
They already contacted the radio museum in Wall NJ
I told them to try VCF since they should be a separate organization.
11:31 p.m.
New subject: Anyone have an interest in really old analog multimeters and a vacuum tube tested circa 1960s or 1950s?
If you don't get a response here, I wouldn't mind asking on the Heinbach
subreddit. Just let me know.
Heinbach is a musician who creates live and recorded music using lab
equipment. He has a large following of inspired creators who would
probably love to use this equipment.
On Sat, May 28, 2022 at 6:09 PM Kenneth Goodwin <kennethgoodwin56(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
Details
1) Knight Allied Radio volt meter 446-06235
2) Precision Apparatus series 85 volt meter
3) Weston Model 676 Tube checker
Useful as display pieces
Presumed to all be functional.
On Sat, May 28, 2022, 6:06 PM Kenneth Goodwin <kennethgoodwin56(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
--
Ed Cashin <ecashin(a)noserose.net>
I have a party in Hightstown NJ
Looking to donate them.
Will follow up with specs.
They already contacted the radio museum in Wall NJ
I told them to try VCF since they should be a separate organization.
11:45 p.m.
New subject: Anyone have an interest in really old analog multimeters and a vacuum tube tested circa 1960s or 1950s?
What about the rescue mailing list?
On Sat, May 28, 2022 at 7:31 PM Ed Cashin <ecashin(a)noserose.net> wrote:
If you don't get a response here, I wouldn't
mind asking on the Heinbach
subreddit. Just let me know.
Heinbach is a musician who creates live and recorded music using lab
equipment. He has a large following of inspired creators who would
probably love to use this equipment.
On Sat, May 28, 2022 at 6:09 PM Kenneth Goodwin <
kennethgoodwin56(a)gmail.com> wrote:
--
Sent from a handheld expect more typos than usual
Details
1) Knight Allied Radio volt meter 446-06235
2) Precision Apparatus series 85 volt meter
3) Weston Model 676 Tube checker
Useful as display pieces
Presumed to all be functional.
On Sat, May 28, 2022, 6:06 PM Kenneth Goodwin <kennethgoodwin56(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
--
Ed Cashin <ecashin(a)noserose.net>
I have a party in Hightstown NJ
Looking to donate them.
Will follow up with specs.
They already contacted the radio museum in Wall NJ
I told them to try VCF since they should be a separate organization.
29 May
29 May
12:57 a.m.
On Sat, May 28, 2022 at 9:30 AM Paul Winalski <paul.winalski(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
On 5/27/22, Warner Losh <imp(a)bsdimp.com> wrote:
bsd 2.11 has 6 different magic numbers. The three extra are one flavor of
overlays that does the itself, and two flavor that do it automatically
(I've not plumbed the depths of the code to know what that means) with
separate I&D and one without.
People working on emulators run into these issues all the time as well.
There was a greater diversity of object formats when Unix was younger
as well, most have been displaced by ELF (PECOFF being the only exception
that's still around outside of Windows).
The object formats that I'm aware of on Unix are:
a.out - comes in three flavors:
OMAGIC - executable instructions (text) and static data in the same section
NMAGIC - text separate from data; shared text
ZMAGIC - text separate from data; demand paged MACH-O - Object and executable format for the MACH
microkernel. This
is still the object format used by the Mac OS X operating system,
which IIRC was built by placing FreeBSD Unix on top of the MACH
microkernel. It allows more than the three sections (.text, .data,
.bss) in a.out.
COFF - Common Object File Format. Allows up to 64 object fsections.
HP-UX had a weird form of COFF in the early days. IBM AIX had its own thing
that wasn't quite COFF, nor was it quite a.out. Apollo also had a variation
on COFF that wasn't quite standard. I wrote a symbol mangler for all of
these in the early 90s and each one was its own special snowflake.
ELF - Executable and Linkable Format. Much more
uniform (everything
is a section) than its predecessors, and allows essentially an
arbitrary number of sections. In addition to its use on Unix, this is
the object file and executable format used by Linux and OpenVMS (on
Itanium and x86).
Are there others?
PECOFF, Portable Executable and Common Object File Format, is the
object file and executable format used by Microsoft Windows. It is a
derivative of COFF, but, in typical Microsoft embrace-and-extend
fashion, there are significant differences. When Windows NT was
ported to the DEC Alpha processor, I had to add PECOFF support to
DEC's GEM compiler back end. I started by adding conditional code to
the existing COFF support, but I found that PECOFF differed enough
from vanilla COFF that it was easier and more maintainable to fork off
a separate module for it.
pecoff is also used for UEFI binaries... Though the subset that's used tends
to be smaller than what windows itself uses.
Warner
2:08 a.m.
New subject: Anyone have an interest in really old analog multimeters and a vacuum tube tested circa 1960s or 1950s?
Photos of equipment at
https://cnj.craigslist.org/zip/d/hightstown-scrap-you-decide-antique/748951…
Please don't go direct to poster.
It might cause confusion and mayhem
On Sat, May 28, 2022, 7:31 PM Ed Cashin <ecashin(a)noserose.net> wrote:
If you don't get a response here, I wouldn't
mind asking on the Heinbach
subreddit. Just let me know.
Heinbach is a musician who creates live and recorded music using lab
equipment. He has a large following of inspired creators who would
probably love to use this equipment.
On Sat, May 28, 2022 at 6:09 PM Kenneth Goodwin <
kennethgoodwin56(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Details
1) Knight Allied Radio volt meter 446-06235
2) Precision Apparatus series 85 volt meter
3) Weston Model 676 Tube checker
Useful as display pieces
Presumed to all be functional.
On Sat, May 28, 2022, 6:06 PM Kenneth Goodwin <kennethgoodwin56(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
--
Ed Cashin <ecashin(a)noserose.net>
I have a party in Hightstown NJ
Looking to donate them.
Will follow up with specs.
They already contacted the radio museum in Wall NJ
I told them to try VCF since they should be a separate organization.
2:10 a.m.
New subject: Anyone have an interest in really old analog multimeters and a vacuum tube tested circa 1960s or 1950s?
Feel free to inquire and then we can all discuss
Etc.
John in Washington state is currently only confirmed parry but might not
want everything or be willing to share.
Be a shame to toss something vintage like this
On Sat, May 28, 2022, 7:31 PM Ed Cashin <ecashin(a)noserose.net> wrote:
If you don't get a response here, I wouldn't
mind asking on the Heinbach
subreddit. Just let me know.
Heinbach is a musician who creates live and recorded music using lab
equipment. He has a large following of inspired creators who would
probably love to use this equipment.
On Sat, May 28, 2022 at 6:09 PM Kenneth Goodwin <
kennethgoodwin56(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Details
1) Knight Allied Radio volt meter 446-06235
2) Precision Apparatus series 85 volt meter
3) Weston Model 676 Tube checker
Useful as display pieces
Presumed to all be functional.
On Sat, May 28, 2022, 6:06 PM Kenneth Goodwin <kennethgoodwin56(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
--
Ed Cashin <ecashin(a)noserose.net>
I have a party in Hightstown NJ
Looking to donate them.
Will follow up with specs.
They already contacted the radio museum in Wall NJ
I told them to try VCF since they should be a separate organization.
2:11 a.m.
New subject: Anyone have an interest in really old analog multimeters and a vacuum tube tested circa 1960s or 1950s?
Everyone feel free to inquire around.
If it all goes to one private party. Then at least they will know who to
passing along to.
On Sat, May 28, 2022, 7:45 PM Clem Cole <clemc(a)ccc.com> wrote:
What about the rescue mailing list?
On Sat, May 28, 2022 at 7:31 PM Ed Cashin <ecashin(a)noserose.net> wrote:
If you don't get a response here, I
wouldn't mind asking on the Heinbach
subreddit. Just let me know.
Heinbach is a musician who creates live and recorded music using lab
equipment. He has a large following of inspired creators who would
probably love to use this equipment.
On Sat, May 28, 2022 at 6:09 PM Kenneth Goodwin <
kennethgoodwin56(a)gmail.com> wrote:
--
Sent from a handheld expect more typos than usual
Details
1) Knight Allied Radio volt meter 446-06235
2) Precision Apparatus series 85 volt meter
3) Weston Model 676 Tube checker
Useful as display pieces
Presumed to all be functional.
On Sat, May 28, 2022, 6:06 PM Kenneth Goodwin <
kennethgoodwin56(a)gmail.com> wrote:
--
Ed Cashin <ecashin(a)noserose.net>
I have a party in Hightstown NJ
Looking to donate them.
Will follow up with specs.
They already contacted the radio museum in Wall NJ
I told them to try VCF since they should be a separate organization.
2:18 a.m.
New subject: Anyone have an interest in really old analog multimeters and a vacuum tube tested circa 1960s or 1950s?
One thing
Sort of looks like the tube checker might be missing a whole lot of the
rest of it.
Like an entire cabinet of stuff
See photos
On Sat, May 28, 2022, 10:11 PM Kenneth Goodwin <kennethgoodwin56(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
Everyone feel free to inquire around.
If it all goes to one private party. Then at least they will know who to
passing along to.
On Sat, May 28, 2022, 7:45 PM Clem Cole <clemc(a)ccc.com> wrote:
What about the rescue mailing list?
On Sat, May 28, 2022 at 7:31 PM Ed Cashin <ecashin(a)noserose.net> wrote:
If you don't get a response here, I
wouldn't mind asking on the Heinbach
subreddit. Just let me know.
Heinbach is a musician who creates live and recorded music using lab
equipment. He has a large following of inspired creators who would
probably love to use this equipment.
On Sat, May 28, 2022 at 6:09 PM Kenneth Goodwin <
kennethgoodwin56(a)gmail.com> wrote:
--
Sent from a handheld expect more typos than usual
Details
1) Knight Allied Radio volt meter 446-06235
2) Precision Apparatus series 85 volt meter
3) Weston Model 676 Tube checker
Useful as display pieces
Presumed to all be functional.
On Sat, May 28, 2022, 6:06 PM Kenneth Goodwin <
kennethgoodwin56(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I have a party in Hightstown NJ
> Looking to donate them.
>
> Will follow up with specs.
>
> They already contacted the radio museum in Wall NJ
>
> I told them to try VCF since they should be a separate organization.
>
--
Ed Cashin <ecashin(a)noserose.net>
9:43 a.m.
Hi,
Warner wrote:
HP-UX had a weird form of COFF in the early days. IBM
AIX had its own
thing that wasn't quite COFF, nor was it quite a.out. Apollo also had
a variation on COFF that wasn't quite standard.
For folks interested in this kind of thing when not all the world was an
ELF, back in 2000, Usenet's comp.compilers' moderator, John R. Levine,
wrote ‘Linkers and Loaders’, https://amzn.to/3LX2eey.
(Disclosure: I reviewed and commented on some chapters.)
--
Cheers, Ralph.
3 Jun
3 Jun
2 a.m.
On May 28, 2022, at 5:57 PM, Warner Losh <imp(a)bsdimp.com> wrote:
HP-UX had a weird form of COFF in the early days. IBM AIX had its own thing that
wasn't quite COFF, nor was it quite a.out. Apollo also had a variation on COFF that
wasn't quite standard. I wrote a symbol mangler for all of these in the early 90s and
each one was its own special snowflake.
HP initially used its own object file format for 32-bit PA-RISC, whether running HP-UX or
MPE. I believe it's still the format the ROM expects for anything bootable, at least
it is for my MPE-capable A400.
IBM's COFF for AIX on POWER and PowerPC was XCOFF, which was also used as the initial
object file format (though not executable format) for the Power Macintosh. Apple's
Preferred Executable Format was essentially a mechanical translation away from IBM's
XCOFF; the initial toolchains produced .o files and then a "final" binary in
XCOFF format, and then ran a MakePEF tool on that to produce the PEF binary for an
executable or shared library. I believe Be, due in part to their heritage and toolchains,
also used PEF for BeOS on PowerPC.
And then there's the "b.out" format used by i960…
-- Chris
2:02 a.m.
On May 28, 2022, at 8:30 AM, Paul Winalski <paul.winalski(a)gmail.com> wrote:
the Mac OS X operating system,
which IIRC was built by placing FreeBSD Unix on top of the MACH
microkernel
Please don't spread this meme. Like NEXTSTEP before it, there's *way more* to
how Mac OS X was created than is implied by "placing FreeBSD Unix on top of the MACH
microkernel." In particular, xnu is a lot closer to OSF/1 than a lot of people may
realize…
-- Chris
2:09 a.m.
On Thu, Jun 2, 2022, 8:00 PM Chris Hanson <cmhanson(a)eschatologist.net>
wrote:
On May 28, 2022, at 5:57 PM, Warner Losh
<imp(a)bsdimp.com> wrote:
There were a number of b.out formats used by PC C compilers...
Warner
-- Chris
HP-UX had a weird form of COFF in the early days. IBM AIX had its own
thing that
wasn't quite COFF, nor was it quite a.out. Apollo also had a
variation on COFF that wasn't quite standard. I wrote a symbol mangler for
all of these in the early 90s and each one was its own special snowflake.
HP initially used its own object file format for 32-bit PA-RISC, whether
running HP-UX or MPE. I believe it's still the format the ROM expects for
anything bootable, at least it is for my MPE-capable A400.
IBM's COFF for AIX on POWER and PowerPC was XCOFF, which was also used as
the initial object file format (though not executable format) for the Power
Macintosh. Apple's Preferred Executable Format was essentially a mechanical
translation away from IBM's XCOFF; the initial toolchains produced .o files
and then a "final" binary in XCOFF format, and then ran a MakePEF tool on
that to produce the PEF binary for an executable or shared library. I
believe Be, due in part to their heritage and toolchains, also used PEF for
BeOS on PowerPC.
And then there's the "b.out" format used by i960…
691
days inactive
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days old
16 comments
9 participants
participants (9)
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Chris Hanson -
Clem Cole -
Ed Cashin -
Grant Taylor -
Kenneth Goodwin -
Paul Ruizendaal -
Paul Winalski -
Ralph Corderoy -
Warner Losh