3 ms·

While we are talking about that, I actually have a PC running on an 80186 (rather uncommon, as it has peripherals built in that are not IBM PC compatible), runn

by anyfoo 6y ago

While we are talking about that, I actually have a PC running on an 80186 (rather uncommon, as it has peripherals built in that are not IBM PC compatible), running a XENIX descendant: SINIX. It's a Siemens PC-D and it was a marvelous machine. Again, not fully compatible with IBM PCs, but often for good reason. The 640k barrier was not a thing on a PC-D for example. And it has its own MMU made of discrete logic chips for real process separation on SINIX!

bombcar 6y ago
The HP Palmtop ran a 186 chip - not sure if it used any of the 186 specific instructions.
- rjsw 6y ago
  The extra instructions were mostly fine, the NEC V20/V30 implemented them too, the 186 had built-in peripheral functions like timers and the interrupt controller that were different to those in a PC. You couldn't use the array bound check instruction as it used the interrupt used by the PC BIOS for Print Screen.
  - jandrese 6y ago
    That is a hilarious limitation. I can just see someone building a test program to try it out and wondering why his printer is suddenly spitting out screenshots.
    - anyfoo 6y ago
      I was going to say "that's now how it works", but actually, thinking about it... I think that's exactly what would happen, heh?
rbanffy 6y ago
I’ve been trying to hunt down one of these machines for years. Does yours have the Collage GUI?
- anyfoo 6y ago
  I have at least two, actually. Hopefully additionally the one that I originally used in the 80s (the other two are much more recent acquisitions) still exists in my parent's basement somewhere. The machines are all in Europe and I'm currently in the US. Where are you based? I might be willing to part with one of the three machines, but only after I've gotten an extensive look at it (and it will likely be a significant while before that, especially with not being able to travel right now and all). What's the Collage GUI? EDIT: The GUIs I'm aware of are Digital Research GEM and Windows, I think up to Windows 2.11 or something. Obviously, that's for DOS. If there was a GUI for SINIX, I'd be extremely interested? I noticed that the SINIX 1.2 kernel added graphics support.
  - rbanffy 6y ago
    I’m in Dublin, Ireland. Collage was a GUI I used a little that ran on SINIX. It wasn’t as nice as GEM but I could run programs and browse files. I think I could run a windowed terminal.
- masswerk 6y ago
  This seems interesting. I couldn't find anything on Collage, other than a note in a German SINIX manual [1] to the extent that this was a GUI used by Siemens before they switched to X Windows and OSF/Motif. Does anyone know, if there is any documentation out there, or maybe even screenshots? [1] "UNIX für den kommerziellen Einsatz: Die SINIX-Anwendungsumgebung" ed. John J. Abbott (Carl Hanser Verlag München Wien, 1993), PDF-copy: http://oldcomputers-ddns.org/public/pub/rechner/siemens/mx-rm/manuals/sinix/unix-sinx_fd_kommerziellen_einsatz_1993.pdf http://oldcomputers-ddns.org/public/pub/rechner/siemens/mx-r...
  - anyfoo 6y ago
    I never knew this was a thing. I compared the kernel (like, actually reading and comparing the disassembly) between SINIX 1.0 and SINIX 1.2, and I noticed that in 1.2 a significant amount of kernel code for graphics support was added. I did wonder what that was for. Now I'm super intrigued that there may actually be a GUI for the PC-D/X[1] out there! I'm pretty sure the installation of SINIX 1.2 does not have that, it probably came on extra diskettes, but now I really want to double check. [1] The machine was basically called PC-D when running DOS, and PC-X when running SINIX. That's not technically true for the first revisions of the boards (where e.g. the MMU was an optional card), but all PC-Ds I remember seeing even had "PC-D/X" written on their backside already. EDIT: That book you linked seems to be for the SVR4 SINIX that came after the XENIX-based PC-D SINIX. By that time, from what I could tell from other research so far, SINIX was running on NS32032, not on 186.

by anyfoo 6y ago

bombcar 6y ago

The HP Palmtop ran a 186 chip - not sure if it used any of the 186 specific instructions.

rjsw 6y ago
The extra instructions were mostly fine, the NEC V20/V30 implemented them too, the 186 had built-in peripheral functions like timers and the interrupt controller that were different to those in a PC. You couldn't use the array bound check instruction as it used the interrupt used by the PC BIOS for Print Screen.
- jandrese 6y ago
  That is a hilarious limitation. I can just see someone building a test program to try it out and wondering why his printer is suddenly spitting out screenshots.
  - anyfoo 6y ago
    I was going to say "that's now how it works", but actually, thinking about it... I think that's exactly what would happen, heh?

rbanffy 6y ago

I’ve been trying to hunt down one of these machines for years. Does yours have the Collage GUI?

anyfoo 6y ago
I have at least two, actually. Hopefully additionally the one that I originally used in the 80s (the other two are much more recent acquisitions) still exists in my parent's basement somewhere. The machines are all in Europe and I'm currently in the US. Where are you based? I might be willing to part with one of the three machines, but only after I've gotten an extensive look at it (and it will likely be a significant while before that, especially with not being able to travel right now and all). What's the Collage GUI? EDIT: The GUIs I'm aware of are Digital Research GEM and Windows, I think up to Windows 2.11 or something. Obviously, that's for DOS. If there was a GUI for SINIX, I'd be extremely interested? I noticed that the SINIX 1.2 kernel added graphics support.
- rbanffy 6y ago
  I’m in Dublin, Ireland. Collage was a GUI I used a little that ran on SINIX. It wasn’t as nice as GEM but I could run programs and browse files. I think I could run a windowed terminal.
masswerk 6y ago
This seems interesting. I couldn't find anything on Collage, other than a note in a German SINIX manual [1] to the extent that this was a GUI used by Siemens before they switched to X Windows and OSF/Motif. Does anyone know, if there is any documentation out there, or maybe even screenshots? [1] "UNIX für den kommerziellen Einsatz: Die SINIX-Anwendungsumgebung" ed. John J. Abbott (Carl Hanser Verlag München Wien, 1993), PDF-copy: http://oldcomputers-ddns.org/public/pub/rechner/siemens/mx-rm/manuals/sinix/unix-sinx_fd_kommerziellen_einsatz_1993.pdf http://oldcomputers-ddns.org/public/pub/rechner/siemens/mx-r...
- anyfoo 6y ago
  I never knew this was a thing. I compared the kernel (like, actually reading and comparing the disassembly) between SINIX 1.0 and SINIX 1.2, and I noticed that in 1.2 a significant amount of kernel code for graphics support was added. I did wonder what that was for. Now I'm super intrigued that there may actually be a GUI for the PC-D/X[1] out there! I'm pretty sure the installation of SINIX 1.2 does not have that, it probably came on extra diskettes, but now I really want to double check. [1] The machine was basically called PC-D when running DOS, and PC-X when running SINIX. That's not technically true for the first revisions of the boards (where e.g. the MMU was an optional card), but all PC-Ds I remember seeing even had "PC-D/X" written on their backside already. EDIT: That book you linked seems to be for the SVR4 SINIX that came after the XENIX-based PC-D SINIX. By that time, from what I could tell from other research so far, SINIX was running on NS32032, not on 186.