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Hi Taniwha I’m working on a new Ethernet card for the Mac SE/30, and I’d love to be able to get if working with A/UX 3. https://www.mactothefuture.org/ https:

Hi Taniwha I’m working on a new Ethernet card for the Mac SE/30, and I’d love to be able to get if working with A/UX 3. https://www.mactothefuture.org/ https://www.mactothefuture.org/ If you had any pointers on how one could write an Ethernet driver for A/UX I’d be very appreciative! :-)

Taniwha 8y ago
oooh .... sadly I haven't had access to kernel source for maybe 30 years, it's been a long time essentially you need to write a BSD style networking driver (of the era, so likely 4.1) along with interrupts/etc I think without source it's going to be really difficult - on the other hand you can use autoconfig to load it into an old kernel, hook up the interrupts and set it running
- jamesfmilne 8y ago
  Cheers. I'll see what I can dig out of the fossil record about autoconfig ;-)
  - Taniwha 8y ago
    autoconfig is essentially a front end like the linux module loading tools, it makes some fake COFF files containing the kernel symbol table and some glue code and links them against the driver(s) you want to load, then it loads the code into kernel space, patches the block/char major tables and calls a driver's init routine Sadly it's not as functional as we would like, I actually wrote it for UniSoft as a way we could sell drivers without building kernels every time, someone at Apple saw it and not only demanded we include it in A/UX but also demanded that they own it .... so I wrote another one for Apple, it worked differently and was barely functional - Apple could have had the original better one for free if they'd dropped the demand that they owned it
npunt 8y ago
Been watching this project for a while (via 68kmla), haven't seen any updates recently but excited to about any progress you make!
- jamesfmilne 8y ago
  Yeah, sorry about that! Real life got in the way a bit this year. I've got the card sending & receiving packets properly now, but having a few issues with the CPLD, making the the machine crash sometimes accessing the card. Hopefully once that's fixed I can make a rev2 of the board and release some schematics & drivers.
  - npunt 8y ago
    Nice to hear you're making progress. Given these are 30 years old, what's a few months here or there, right? :) Look forward to seeing v2.

Taniwha 8y ago

oooh .... sadly I haven't had access to kernel source for maybe 30 years, it's been a long time essentially you need to write a BSD style networking driver (of the era, so likely 4.1) along with interrupts/etc I think without source it's going to be really difficult - on the other hand you can use autoconfig to load it into an old kernel, hook up the interrupts and set it running

jamesfmilne 8y ago
Cheers. I'll see what I can dig out of the fossil record about autoconfig ;-)
- Taniwha 8y ago
  autoconfig is essentially a front end like the linux module loading tools, it makes some fake COFF files containing the kernel symbol table and some glue code and links them against the driver(s) you want to load, then it loads the code into kernel space, patches the block/char major tables and calls a driver's init routine Sadly it's not as functional as we would like, I actually wrote it for UniSoft as a way we could sell drivers without building kernels every time, someone at Apple saw it and not only demanded we include it in A/UX but also demanded that they own it .... so I wrote another one for Apple, it worked differently and was barely functional - Apple could have had the original better one for free if they'd dropped the demand that they owned it

npunt 8y ago

Been watching this project for a while (via 68kmla), haven't seen any updates recently but excited to about any progress you make!

jamesfmilne 8y ago
Yeah, sorry about that! Real life got in the way a bit this year. I've got the card sending & receiving packets properly now, but having a few issues with the CPLD, making the the machine crash sometimes accessing the card. Hopefully once that's fixed I can make a rev2 of the board and release some schematics & drivers.
- npunt 8y ago
  Nice to hear you're making progress. Given these are 30 years old, what's a few months here or there, right? :) Look forward to seeing v2.