3 ms·

This is a great and accurate historical history of the Network Server and its software. I worked at Apple, in the same building with the Apple’s Shiner team an

This is a great and accurate historical history of the Network Server and its software. I worked at Apple, in the same building with the Apple’s Shiner team and AIX teams, and had a Network Server in my office because I was on the team at Apple porting NetWare to the machine—I still have a bootable CD. The project was cancelled just as it was entering Beta when disks were to get into customers hands.

mietek 3y ago
Please image your CD and preserve it in the Internet Archive, for the sake of computing history. Do you happen to have any other unpreserved items from this era? In particular, APDA publications are almost all lost to time.
classichasclass 3y ago
(author) Was this PIN or Portable NetWare? How did it look on the ANS? Same interface as regular NetWare? That CD would also be very interesting to run on real hardware. ckaiser at floodgap dawt com if you're willing!
- knuckleheadsmif 3y ago
  I sent you an email. Yes it was PIN.
- knuckleheadsmif 3y ago
  It looked just like Netware except setup was actually more simple as it auto detected stuff on the network simplifying the process. At the time it was being developed for MIPS, PPC, SPARC, and PA-RISC (I’m thinking there was a fifth platform, or maybe that was X86?) Netware dropped the other RISC processors and until it was cancelled focused mainly on PPC and X86. Apple did all the PPC drivers, and all the device dependent code as well as a modified version of setup. It was dropped as both companies were going into a death spiral about the time Micheal Spindler left and Gil A started. We were told it was a “mutual” decision by both companies but I don’t have any insight into the reason for cancellation beyond that.
no_wizard 3y ago
What was it developed in? C/C++? I’m merely curious
- knuckleheadsmif 3y ago
  C code (complied, maybe?, with a C++ compiler for things like variable scoping. I forget.) NetWare’s code almost assuredly was pure C as some of the processors it supported may not have had C++ compilers then? Compilation was done on an IBM RS6000, the same as for the Mac OS at the time, but debugging used a Mac running the MPW debugger (I forget the name) connected to another Mac that ran the code. The Metroworks compiler was just becoming a viable around the time the project was cancelled but all internal development, including MasOS used IBM machines as compile servers. A tiny portion of the code by necessity was written in assembly (which I happened to work on) for thread switching and the page table. Only Novel’s most common NLMs (apps) were available and no 3rd party ones were available at the time. The Beta would have gone to some number of NLM developers had it not gone out. Somewhere is an article about developing NLMs, I’ll try to find it and post a link.
nar001 3y ago
Would you post an image of the CD? It seems interesting to check out
knuckleheadsmif 3y ago
Here is an article: https://support.novell.com/techcenter/articles/dnd19950304.html https://support.novell.com/techcenter/articles/dnd19950304.h...
- knuckleheadsmif 3y ago
  Internally we used IBM’s RS6000 compiler. Novell contracted with Cygnus for a GNU based compiler for their NLM developers that was being developed concurrently with our development. That compiler was for all the PIN based architectures (PA-RISC, SPARC, MIPs, PPC) that PIN was initially intended for.
- knuckleheadsmif 3y ago
  The project was cancelled around the time this article was published (maybe a month or 2 later.)

mietek 3y ago

Please image your CD and preserve it in the Internet Archive, for the sake of computing history. Do you happen to have any other unpreserved items from this era? In particular, APDA publications are almost all lost to time.

classichasclass 3y ago

(author) Was this PIN or Portable NetWare? How did it look on the ANS? Same interface as regular NetWare? That CD would also be very interesting to run on real hardware. ckaiser at floodgap dawt com if you're willing!

knuckleheadsmif 3y ago
I sent you an email. Yes it was PIN.
knuckleheadsmif 3y ago
It looked just like Netware except setup was actually more simple as it auto detected stuff on the network simplifying the process. At the time it was being developed for MIPS, PPC, SPARC, and PA-RISC (I’m thinking there was a fifth platform, or maybe that was X86?) Netware dropped the other RISC processors and until it was cancelled focused mainly on PPC and X86. Apple did all the PPC drivers, and all the device dependent code as well as a modified version of setup. It was dropped as both companies were going into a death spiral about the time Micheal Spindler left and Gil A started. We were told it was a “mutual” decision by both companies but I don’t have any insight into the reason for cancellation beyond that.

no_wizard 3y ago

What was it developed in? C/C++? I’m merely curious

knuckleheadsmif 3y ago
C code (complied, maybe?, with a C++ compiler for things like variable scoping. I forget.) NetWare’s code almost assuredly was pure C as some of the processors it supported may not have had C++ compilers then? Compilation was done on an IBM RS6000, the same as for the Mac OS at the time, but debugging used a Mac running the MPW debugger (I forget the name) connected to another Mac that ran the code. The Metroworks compiler was just becoming a viable around the time the project was cancelled but all internal development, including MasOS used IBM machines as compile servers. A tiny portion of the code by necessity was written in assembly (which I happened to work on) for thread switching and the page table. Only Novel’s most common NLMs (apps) were available and no 3rd party ones were available at the time. The Beta would have gone to some number of NLM developers had it not gone out. Somewhere is an article about developing NLMs, I’ll try to find it and post a link.

nar001 3y ago

Would you post an image of the CD? It seems interesting to check out

knuckleheadsmif 3y ago

Here is an article: https://support.novell.com/techcenter/articles/dnd19950304.html https://support.novell.com/techcenter/articles/dnd19950304.h...

knuckleheadsmif 3y ago
Internally we used IBM’s RS6000 compiler. Novell contracted with Cygnus for a GNU based compiler for their NLM developers that was being developed concurrently with our development. That compiler was for all the PIN based architectures (PA-RISC, SPARC, MIPs, PPC) that PIN was initially intended for.
knuckleheadsmif 3y ago
The project was cancelled around the time this article was published (maybe a month or 2 later.)