culberts@hplwbc.hpl.hp.com (Bruce Culbertson) (11/16/90)
Welcome to those who have tuned in recently to comp.sys.nsc.32k or the
pc532 mailing list. I will post this message from time to time to
answer commonly asked questions about obtaining software for the pc532.
The pc532, by the way, is a single board computer, based on the National
32532 CPU, whose elegant design has been placed into the public domain
by George Scolero and Dave Rand. I have contributed some of the
software which people are using with the pc532. If you have pc532
software which you are distributing, I would be happy to add a
description of it to this message.
1. ROM Monitor
I took a disassembler written by Bob Krause and embellished it to create
a complete monitor/debugger. It is in the public domain. Send e-mail
or order my Minix port distribution (see below) for an executable and
sources.
There are other monitors which have been used with the pc532 including a
RAM-less monitor from National. I do not have details on obtaining
them. I believe most pc532 Minix users boot Minix with my monitor.
2. Unix style assembler, linker, archiver, nm, ranlib
I wrote these. In addition to running on the pc532 under Minix, I have
used them on MS-DOS, the Macintosh, Amdahl UTS, HP 68000 and HP-PA based
workstations and minicomputers, etc. They are in the public domain.
Order my Minix port distribution for executables; send e-mail for
sources.
3. C compiler
I have made minor changes to the GCC C compiler, available from the Free
Software Foundation. GCC is free but copyrighted. Send e-mail for a
copy of my source changes. Order my Minix distribution for an
executable which runs under pc532 Minix. Under the FSF copyright, I
think I am obligated to make the complete GCC sources available.
Because they are huge, I hope few people will actually try to obtain
them through me.
4. Pc532 Minix
Minix is a Unix look-alike operating system written by Andrew Tanenbaum.
It is copyrighted and distributed at reasonable cost (about $100) by
Prentice-Hall for various popular personal computers. See
comp.os.minix.
I have ported Minix to the pc532. My port is based on Minix 1.3, which
is not the latest version. (A port of the latest version is being
developed.) I distribute a set of files which, when combined with a
working pc532 and almost any standard Prentice-Hall Minix distribution,
give you a complete pc532-based Minix implementation capable of
re-compiling itself. My changes are supplied with absolutely no
warranties of any kind. My changes are free -- and worth the price!
Because Minix is copyrighted, I have to be careful about distributing
even incomplete pieces of it. To receive my pc532 Minix port files, you
will need to send me the original boot disk from any official
Prentice-Hall Minix distribution. The copyright must appear on the disk
label. No reasonable facsimiles, please. If you have a tape version,
please send it along with enough postage for me to send it back to you.
I will return all tapes and disks but do keep a copy!
I have been supplying the pc532 Minix files on MS-DOS disks. MS-DOS
machines are pretty common and PC-Minix owners can read MS-DOS disks
from their Minix machines. The files fit on two 1.2 megabyte or six 360
kilobyte disks. I prefer to make 1.2 megabyte disks. I'll consider
making other formats (besides 360K and 1.2M MS-DOS) but be forewarned
that you can probably find an IBM-PC faster than I can find a machine
that makes the format you want.
To receive the pc532 Minix distribution, send me one of:
plan A
* official Minix boot disk
* two 1.2M floppies
* packaging for return mail
* postage for return mail
plan B
* official Minix boot disk
* six 360K floppies
* packaging for return mail
* postage for return mail
plan C
* official Minix boot disk
* six dollars. I'll supply floppies, packaging, and return postage.
Send the above to
Bruce Culbertson
2083 Princeton Street
Palo Alto, California 94306
U.S.A.
5. Pc532-src mailing list
Pc532 source code is occasionally posted to pc532-src@bungi.com.
Postings should be divided into pieces less that 50K in size and should
be in uuencoded tar or shar format. Compress them also if they are
large. Do not post non-source messages; send them to comp.sys.nsc.32k
instead.
Bruce Culbertson
culberts@hplabs.hp.com