[TUHS] Unix on Zilog Z8000?

[Heinz Lycklama]

That is correct. John Bass did contribute the lockf(2) system call
to the /usr/group standard. It is in the 1984 document.

Heinz

On 1/21/2020 10:28 AM, Clem Cole wrote:
> The Onyx box redated all the 68K and later Intel or other systems.  
>  John Bass brought one to USENIX to demo in early 1980 ru a V7 port 
> and everyone was blown away. Playing with it. It was a desktop (19" 
> rack) system that worked like a PDP-11.   I don't remember the bus, 
> but I would guess it was either custom or Multibus-I.
>
> Besides being one of the first non-PDP-11 'ports', the original 
> lockf(2) system call was defined for the database that they had built. 
> John would release the specs to /usr/group later.  I remember at one 
> meeting in the early 1980s discussing if file locking needed to be in 
> the original specification (Heinz probably remembers also as the chair 
> of that meeting).  I'm not at home, so I don't have the document to 
> see if it was picked up.  The argument was that serious computers like 
> VMS or the like ran real databases and without file locking UNIX would 
> never be considered a real OS that people could use.
>
> BTW: Joy would later use Bass's call as a model for the 4.2 call, but 
> Joy made the locks advisory, Bass's version was full / mandatory locks.
>
> FWIW: I think a search will pick up a number of other Z8000 based 
> systems, but Onyx was the first UNIX box.
>
> On Tue, Jan 21, 2020 at 12:53 PM Jon Forrest <nobozo at gmail.com 
> <mailto:nobozo at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     There's been a lot of discussion about early Unix on Intel, National
>     Semi, Motorola, and Sparc processors. I don't recall if Unix ran on
>     the Z8000, and if not, why not.
>
>     As I remember the Z8000 was going to be the great white hope that
>     would continue Zilog's success with the Z80 into modern times.
>     But, it obviously didn't happen.
>
>     Why?
>
>     Jon
>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://minnie.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/attachments/20200121/150aa462/attachment.html>