6 ms·

Installing A/UX 1.1 like it's the 90s

73 points by zdw 3mo ago

yjftsjthsd-h 3mo ago
> To start off the install, we begin with the “System setup and README” disk. We need to partition the disk, and then do something counter-intuitive: install System 6 on a Mac partition. This is because there’s a Mac application that kicks off the A/UX boot process: SASH; the A/UX standalone shell. This ‘pre-boot environment’ allows for launching an A/UX kernel and also some disk and recovery operations. Funny how that rhythms with having a macOS install next to Asahi Linux. The more things change:) Also, swapping through 26 floppies to install would have been... Something.
- classichasclass 3mo ago
  A/UX 1.0 came on a pre-written 80MB disk, which indeed would have been a lot easier.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 3mo ago
    Oh, that's even better:) I assumed the mentioned tape was the preferred way to get it, but a no-op install is faster/easier yet!
  - nickhodge 3mo ago
    80Mb Drives were _expensive_
    - yjftsjthsd-h 3mo ago
      I don't get the impression that a single aspect of A/UX was meant to be cheap, except perhaps in comparison to the other Real UNIX Workstation offerings.
- bluedino 3mo ago
  > Also, swapping through 26 floppies to install would have been... Something. Windows 95 was about that size, and Office was closer to 50? At my very first job I remember installing stuff that way...ugh
  - gustavusharding 3mo ago
    I remember installing Office on Windows 3.1 and it was about 35 floppies at that time IIRC.
- ramijames 3mo ago
  If I remember correctly, there's an interesting historical reason for this: a lot of the original functionality that we'd today consider "part of the OS" was actually in ROM on hardware in really old Macs. Mouse functionality, basic windowing, etc. This meant that to get A/UX running you first had to bootstrap into a light version of Mac OS and then boot into A/UX.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 3mo ago
    The Toolbox ROMs, right? I can see the utility of using that (I mean, beyond that you might need to use it to boot), but why couldn't A/UX call those APIs itself? I can easily see where bootstrapping through Mac OS would be easier, but I can't immediately see why it would be particularly necessary.
    - kjs3 3mo ago
      It's been a long time, but I'm pretty sure A/UX didn't use any of the toolbox roms and had it's own drivers (we had the source). A/UX booted from a MacOS partition because the Mac bootloader only understood booting MacOS (and it wasn't writeable with new boot code), so you booted to MacOS, then started SASH, which loaded Unix.
      - classichasclass 3mo ago
        That's exactly the reason. NetBSD uses its own booter for the same purpose, for example.
  - FireBeyond 3mo ago
    Yeah, that was similar to Amiga and the Kickstart concept, initially on floppy, then as a separate ROM module. Going from AmigaOS 1.3 to 2.0 with the applicable Kickstart ROM gave you a whole new UI layer.
    - ramijames 3mo ago
      I miss the Amiga.
- TacticalCoder 3mo ago
  > Also, swapping through 26 floppies to install would have been... Something. I still have a legit copy of Word on 10 floppies. It was bad. And when you'd copy so many floppies, typically one would fail and you'd only notice when installing. We weren't very advanced back then (at least I wasn't): no fancy an 11th "parity" disk that'll fix any other one that'd fail. At least not for me. The data CD-ROM was a very welcome addition to the world back then.
  - bombcar 3mo ago
    I remember a trick (I think it was for Windows 95) where you could copy all the files to the hard drive first and then once they were all there, you could install directly from them.
- kjs3 3mo ago
  Also, swapping through 26 floppies to install would have been... Something. We installed it from a QIC tape when it wasn't delivered on a SCSI hard drive. Not sure if that option was generally available tho; we were doing kernel development.
  - nickhodge 3mo ago
    Installed via QIC tape to Rodime 120Mb drive. Had fun formatting the Rodime; but got it working. Learnt TCP/IP with this setup. Good Times(tm)
    - kjs3 3mo ago
      Yeah...using anything other than an Apple Approved(tm) scsi disk (or, really, anything 'not Apple') was an adventure. One of my least favorite Unixen, frankly. SVR2 based when most of the world on the AT&T side of Unix was SVR3 (and SVR4 was just around the corner), some BSD bits tossed into the blender, coated in a not-very-good MacOS emulation layer. Congrats to you on your perseverance; I recall the TCP/IP stack was...challenging. A/UX was created so Apple could bid on government contracts that had a "must be Unix and/or POSIX" checkbox (common requirement at the time). IMO, they should have either gone all-in on a "MacOS apps running perfect on a Unix kernel" and picked a better kernel, or done the Atari thing and tossed the legacy OS and gone all in on a "Unix on Apple hardware". Instead it was 'meh' all around.
- pjmlp 3mo ago
  > Also, swapping through 26 floppies to install would have been... Something. Perfectly normal. You would need a few for MS-DOS (I think only MS-DOS 3.3 was the last that could fit into an high density one). Followed by about 10 for Windows 3.x, similar numbers for Turbo Pascal, Turbo C++, Clipper, Word, Excel (replace with the competition),.... And before installing all of that, don't forget to as very first step, create backup floppies from all of them, and actually use the backups during the installations, while keeping the originals in a safe place, not that the drive could damage one of them.
latchkey 3mo ago
there will always be a special place in my heart for a/ux. i ported a lot of open source software to it. ran a bbs, cu-seeme server, gopherd, httpd, and many other early internet services on it. this really gave me an early taste for what the internet would become.
anthk 3mo ago
I wonder if Nethack 3.4.3 or Slashem 0.8 could build on a recent version of A/UX...
- a96 3mo ago
  Would be interesting to see that. I used to build it on Coherent, HP-UX, and Aix at least IIRC. Maybe others. It was kind of fun except for all the curses and termcaps. The page mentions there's an emulator that should be able to run it. Don't know if there's a local copy that could be used along with some method to transfer the sources. Cloud boxes might not suffice.
baron3dl 3mo ago
I picked up an SE/30 at the MIT flea (SwapFest) in 1999, hell bent on running A/UX on it. Never even got an installer disk image to boot.
- asveikau 3mo ago
  I got a Quadra 650 (if memory serves) super cheap on eBay circa 2003 and put A/UX on it successfully. I still have that machine but it hasn't been powered on in quite some time.

73 points by zdw 3mo ago

> To start off the install, we begin with the “System setup and README” disk. We need to partition the disk, and then do something counter-intuitive: install System 6 on a Mac partition. This is because there’s a Mac application that kicks off the A/UX boot process: SASH; the A/UX standalone shell. This ‘pre-boot environment’ allows for launching an A/UX kernel and also some disk and recovery operations. Funny how that rhythms with having a macOS install next to Asahi Linux. The more things change:) Also, swapping through 26 floppies to install would have been... Something.

classichasclass 3mo ago
A/UX 1.0 came on a pre-written 80MB disk, which indeed would have been a lot easier.
- yjftsjthsd-h 3mo ago
  Oh, that's even better:) I assumed the mentioned tape was the preferred way to get it, but a no-op install is faster/easier yet!
- nickhodge 3mo ago
  80Mb Drives were _expensive_
  - yjftsjthsd-h 3mo ago
    I don't get the impression that a single aspect of A/UX was meant to be cheap, except perhaps in comparison to the other Real UNIX Workstation offerings.
bluedino 3mo ago
> Also, swapping through 26 floppies to install would have been... Something. Windows 95 was about that size, and Office was closer to 50? At my very first job I remember installing stuff that way...ugh
- gustavusharding 3mo ago
  I remember installing Office on Windows 3.1 and it was about 35 floppies at that time IIRC.
ramijames 3mo ago
If I remember correctly, there's an interesting historical reason for this: a lot of the original functionality that we'd today consider "part of the OS" was actually in ROM on hardware in really old Macs. Mouse functionality, basic windowing, etc. This meant that to get A/UX running you first had to bootstrap into a light version of Mac OS and then boot into A/UX.
- yjftsjthsd-h 3mo ago
  The Toolbox ROMs, right? I can see the utility of using that (I mean, beyond that you might need to use it to boot), but why couldn't A/UX call those APIs itself? I can easily see where bootstrapping through Mac OS would be easier, but I can't immediately see why it would be particularly necessary.
  - kjs3 3mo ago
    It's been a long time, but I'm pretty sure A/UX didn't use any of the toolbox roms and had it's own drivers (we had the source). A/UX booted from a MacOS partition because the Mac bootloader only understood booting MacOS (and it wasn't writeable with new boot code), so you booted to MacOS, then started SASH, which loaded Unix.
    - classichasclass 3mo ago
      That's exactly the reason. NetBSD uses its own booter for the same purpose, for example.
- FireBeyond 3mo ago
  Yeah, that was similar to Amiga and the Kickstart concept, initially on floppy, then as a separate ROM module. Going from AmigaOS 1.3 to 2.0 with the applicable Kickstart ROM gave you a whole new UI layer.
  - ramijames 3mo ago
    I miss the Amiga.
TacticalCoder 3mo ago
> Also, swapping through 26 floppies to install would have been... Something. I still have a legit copy of Word on 10 floppies. It was bad. And when you'd copy so many floppies, typically one would fail and you'd only notice when installing. We weren't very advanced back then (at least I wasn't): no fancy an 11th "parity" disk that'll fix any other one that'd fail. At least not for me. The data CD-ROM was a very welcome addition to the world back then.
- bombcar 3mo ago
  I remember a trick (I think it was for Windows 95) where you could copy all the files to the hard drive first and then once they were all there, you could install directly from them.
kjs3 3mo ago
Also, swapping through 26 floppies to install would have been... Something. We installed it from a QIC tape when it wasn't delivered on a SCSI hard drive. Not sure if that option was generally available tho; we were doing kernel development.
- nickhodge 3mo ago
  Installed via QIC tape to Rodime 120Mb drive. Had fun formatting the Rodime; but got it working. Learnt TCP/IP with this setup. Good Times(tm)
  - kjs3 3mo ago
    Yeah...using anything other than an Apple Approved(tm) scsi disk (or, really, anything 'not Apple') was an adventure. One of my least favorite Unixen, frankly. SVR2 based when most of the world on the AT&T side of Unix was SVR3 (and SVR4 was just around the corner), some BSD bits tossed into the blender, coated in a not-very-good MacOS emulation layer. Congrats to you on your perseverance; I recall the TCP/IP stack was...challenging. A/UX was created so Apple could bid on government contracts that had a "must be Unix and/or POSIX" checkbox (common requirement at the time). IMO, they should have either gone all-in on a "MacOS apps running perfect on a Unix kernel" and picked a better kernel, or done the Atari thing and tossed the legacy OS and gone all in on a "Unix on Apple hardware". Instead it was 'meh' all around.
pjmlp 3mo ago
> Also, swapping through 26 floppies to install would have been... Something. Perfectly normal. You would need a few for MS-DOS (I think only MS-DOS 3.3 was the last that could fit into an high density one). Followed by about 10 for Windows 3.x, similar numbers for Turbo Pascal, Turbo C++, Clipper, Word, Excel (replace with the competition),.... And before installing all of that, don't forget to as very first step, create backup floppies from all of them, and actually use the backups during the installations, while keeping the originals in a safe place, not that the drive could damage one of them.

latchkey 3mo ago

there will always be a special place in my heart for a/ux. i ported a lot of open source software to it. ran a bbs, cu-seeme server, gopherd, httpd, and many other early internet services on it. this really gave me an early taste for what the internet would become.

anthk 3mo ago

I wonder if Nethack 3.4.3 or Slashem 0.8 could build on a recent version of A/UX...

a96 3mo ago
Would be interesting to see that. I used to build it on Coherent, HP-UX, and Aix at least IIRC. Maybe others. It was kind of fun except for all the curses and termcaps. The page mentions there's an emulator that should be able to run it. Don't know if there's a local copy that could be used along with some method to transfer the sources. Cloud boxes might not suffice.

baron3dl 3mo ago

I picked up an SE/30 at the MIT flea (SwapFest) in 1999, hell bent on running A/UX on it. Never even got an installer disk image to boot.

asveikau 3mo ago
I got a Quadra 650 (if memory serves) super cheap on eBay circa 2003 and put A/UX on it successfully. I still have that machine but it hasn't been powered on in quite some time.