jjd@bbn.com (James J Dempsey) (06/13/91)
I realize it is probably Apple's policy not to comment on unannounced products, so I'll try to word this question so that someone might be able to answer it. It is aimed at people in the A/UX group at Apple. There are quite a few Intel based portables out there (not to mention some notebooks) which are powerful enough to run Unix. If Apple were to introduce a 68030 based portable, assuming one had a sufficiently large disk (perhaps external), would it be safe for one to assume that A/UX would most likely run on such a computer? An answer to a question like the one above could help me make some purchasing decisions. I hope someone can comment. Thanks, --Jim Dempsey-- jjd@bbn.com
liam@dcs.qmw.ac.uk (William Roberts;) (06/19/91)
In <64631@bbn.BBN.COM> jjd@bbn.com (James J Dempsey) writes: >If Apple were to introduce a 68030 based portable, assuming one >had a sufficiently large disk (perhaps external), would it be safe for >one to assume that A/UX would most likely run on such a computer? It will be illuminating to find out, won't it... Looking at the recent record of Apple CPUs, software and peripherals, it seems that A/UX wasn't important enough to bother supporting it on the existing Mac portable, or on the LC, it wasn't important enough to alpha test HyperCard 2.0 with, it wasn't important enough to bother having the Personal LaserWriter work with it (alas, SCSI problems). Things evidently are changing: the new style Ethernet cards even come with an A/UX driver when you don't ask for one. I guess the big question for Apple would be "is it worth the extra cost to have an A/UX capable machine?" - who is going to buy an Apple portable to run A/UX that wouldn't buy an Apple portable which didn't run A?UX? Will the UNIX laptop marketplace be completely swamped by the SPARC-based machines? If it we me, I'd have to say that A/UX on an Apple portable isn't worth raising the price for. If there is a low power 68030 which gives decent battery life in a small lightweight unit then fine, lets run A/UX on it. If the battery life is significantly longer for a 68020 machine then it's a much tougher question. -- % William Roberts Internet: liam@dcs.qmw.ac.uk % Queen Mary & Westfield College UUCP: liam@qmw-dcs.UUCP % Mile End Road Telephone: +44 71 975 5234 % LONDON, E1 4NS, UK Fax: +44 81-980 6533
dittman@skitzo.csc.ti.com (Eric Dittman) (06/19/91)
In article <3388@redstar.dcs.qmw.ac.uk>, liam@dcs.qmw.ac.uk (William Roberts;) writes: > In <64631@bbn.BBN.COM> jjd@bbn.com (James J Dempsey) writes: > >>If Apple were to introduce a 68030 based portable, assuming one >>had a sufficiently large disk (perhaps external), would it be safe for >>one to assume that A/UX would most likely run on such a computer? > > It will be illuminating to find out, won't it... > Looking at the recent record of Apple CPUs, software and peripherals, it seems > that A/UX wasn't important enough to bother supporting it on the existing Mac > portable, or on the LC, it wasn't important enough to alpha test HyperCard 2.0 > with, it wasn't important enough to bother having the Personal LaserWriter > work with it (alas, SCSI problems). The reason A/UX isn't supported on the existing Mac Portable is the Portable only has a 68000, and you need a 68020+68851, 68030, or 68040 to run A/UX. If Apple does bring out a 68030 portable, I'd really like to see A/UX supported on it. -- Eric Dittman Texas Instruments - Component Test Facility dittman@skitzo.csc.ti.com dittman@skbat.csc.ti.com Disclaimer: I don't speak for Texas Instruments or the Component Test Facility. I don't even speak for myself.
blob@Apple.COM (Brian Bechtel) (06/19/91)
liam@dcs.qmw.ac.uk (William Roberts;) writes: >Looking at the recent record of Apple CPUs, software and peripherals, >it seems that A/UX wasn't important enough to bother supporting it on >the existing Mac portable, or on the LC, A/UX requires a 68020 with PMMU or 68030. The "existing Mac portable" uses a 68000, so it's unsupported. The Macintosh LC uses a 68020 with no provision for a PMMU, so it's unsupported as well. Importance has nothing to do with the decision as to which machines can run A/UX, in this case. --Brian Bechtel blob@apple.com "My opinion, not Apple's"
d88-jwa@byse.nada.kth.se (Jon W{tte) (06/19/91)
> liam@dcs.qmw.ac.uk (William Roberts;) writes:
Looking at the recent record of Apple CPUs, software and peripherals, it seems
that A/UX wasn't important enough to bother supporting it on the existing Mac
portable, or on the LC, it wasn't important enough to alpha test HyperCard 2.0
It was Claris who made HyperCard 2.0
The present portable has a 68000 - not very easy for A/UX :-)
The LC has a +20 but still no MMU.
--
Jon W{tte
h+@nada.kth.se
- Speed !ewing-martin@cs.yale.edu (Martin Ewing) (06/21/91)
In article <54156@apple.Apple.COM> blob@Apple.COM (Brian Bechtel) writes: >liam@dcs.qmw.ac.uk (William Roberts;) writes: > >>Looking at the recent record of Apple CPUs, software and peripherals, >>it seems that A/UX wasn't important enough to bother supporting it on >>the existing Mac portable, or on the LC, > >A/UX requires a 68020 with PMMU or 68030. The "existing Mac portable" >uses a 68000, so it's unsupported. The Macintosh LC uses a 68020 with >no provision for a PMMU, so it's unsupported as well. Importance has >nothing to do with the decision as to which machines can run A/UX, in >this case. > >--Brian Bechtel blob@apple.com "My opinion, not Apple's" Then there's the question of disk. Rumors I hear are that there is no disk larger than 40 MB coming in the new portables. I think that the minimum useful A/UX disk will be >> max. popular MacOS disk for some time to come. -Martin Ewing, ewing@yale.edu
gene@segue.segue.com (Gene Hightower) (06/22/91)
In article <1991Jun19.093641.13@skitzo.csc.ti.com> dittman@skitzo.csc.ti.com (Eric Dittman) writes: >The reason A/UX isn't supported on the existing Mac Portable is the Portable >only has a 68000, and you need a 68020+68851, 68030, or 68040 to run A/UX. In article <54156@apple.Apple.COM> blob@Apple.COM (Brian Bechtel) writes: >liam@dcs.qmw.ac.uk (William Roberts;) writes: > >>Looking at the recent record of Apple CPUs, software and peripherals, >>it seems that A/UX wasn't important enough to bother supporting it on >>the existing Mac portable, or on the LC, > >A/UX requires a 68020 with PMMU or 68030. The "existing Mac portable" >uses a 68000, so it's unsupported. The Macintosh LC uses a 68020 with >no provision for a PMMU, so it's unsupported as well. Importance has >nothing to do with the decision as to which machines can run A/UX, in >this case. Apple chose not to support A/UX on the LC and the portable. When you make a decision to use an old 68000 or a 68020 without a socket for the 68851 you have made a decision not to run A/UX. If A/UX was important to Apple you would see 68851 sockets in LCs and maybe CMOS versions of the 68010 in the portable with some type of low power MMU. Unix can run on 68010 systems. Look at the old Sun-1 and Sun-2 workstations. I don't design hardware and so I don't claim to be an expert, but in the case of the LC I don't think that adding support for the 68851 would have been a big deal. It is mostly a marketing issue. To keep the low priced LC from hurting Mac-II sales Apple had to break it in some way. Providing no virtual memory support makes it broken enough to sell cheap. -- Gene Hightower
alexis@panix.uucp (Alexis Rosen) (06/23/91)
ewing-martin@cs.yale.edu (Martin Ewing) writes: >[various quotes from others] >Then there's the question of disk. Rumors I hear are that there is no >disk larger than 40 MB coming in the new portables. I think that the >minimum useful A/UX disk will be >> max. popular MacOS disk for some >time to come. I doubt this very much. Apple already buys from Quantum and Connors. Quantum has a 105MB unit that would do nicely. Connors would probably be the pick, though- they're a bit slower, but consume less power. Theirs is 100MB. Anyway, it really doesn't matter much. MicroNet (and probably others) will have a bigger disk available the day it's announced. This is not privy info, it's just common sense and experience speaking. --- Alexis Rosen Owner/Sysadmin, PANIX Public Access Unix, NY alexis@panix.com {cmcl2,apple}!panix!alexis
paul@taniwha.UUCP (Paul Campbell) (06/25/91)
In article <7941@segue.segue.com> gene@segue.segue.com (Gene Hightower) writes: > >If A/UX was important to Apple you would see 68851 sockets in LCs and >maybe CMOS versions of the 68010 in the portable with some type of low >power MMU. > >Unix can run on 68010 systems. Look at the old Sun-1 and Sun-2 >workstations. No! - the old Sun MMUs use LOTS of power hungry SRAM - not something you pop in a portable, and the 68451 (the Mot. MMU) is very tacky (hard to program well) and also very slow. Chances are you will end up finding that a CMOS '030 is lower power than a CMOS '010 plus an SRAM MMU. Also the '010 only has a 16MB address space (small programs only please, no 32-bit Mac world). Finally you are talking about a rewrite of a VERY large part of the A/UX kernel for a new MMU probably not something anyone at Apple's going to look on as a high priority compared with doing the work for '040s (easier), 7.0 and future Unix release support (ie V.4 or some such). >I don't design hardware and so I don't claim to be an expert, but in >the case of the LC I don't think that adding support for the 68851 >would have been a big deal. Actually it is since the addressing path must pass through the PMMU, unlike an FPU where it is just tacked onto the bus you can't have something with a PMMU that unplugs without having something that plugs into the PMMU socket in it's place - this also means you have to have the socket on main CPU board (you can't add it to an external board). Also I don't think that they make anything in a PMMU that is pluggable that isn't a ceramic PGA (which in hardware terms means expensive and physically big). Adding a PMMU also slows an '020 down. Finally the volumes for PMMUs these days must be very low - everybody is using '030s and '040s which means that the prices aren't going to get any cheaper. My guess is that a '020 + PGA socket + dummy chip + board space probably costs more than an '030. So what the people at Apple were really deciding was "is the added cost of an '030 worth the added functionality in this low end machine" (where the added functionality is 7.0 VM + A/UX) Also rumor has it that the 'LC was a 'pirate project' that was just about done when they decided to concentrate on low-end machines - chances are they just took what was done and decided to ship it ... Paul -- Paul Campbell UUCP: ..!mtxinu!taniwha!paul AppleLink: CAMPBELL.P Tom Metzger's White Ayrian Resistance has been enjoined to stop selling Nazi Bart Simpson t-shirts - Tom of course got it wrong, Bart is yellow, not white.