jallen@csserv2.ic.sunysb.edu (Joseph Allen) (05/15/91)
I just inherited a tandy model 12 upgraded to a model 16 (and 15MB hard disk).
Unfortunately it has a horrable IBM-like cobol operating system on it
(RM/COS). I would like to get xenix for this so:
- I know very little about compatability & junk on these machines
can someone tell me hardware requirements for various versions
of xenix (disk space, memory space, model, etc)
- Does the version of xenix for these machines have:
C compiler & libraries
Virtual memory
Any quirks I should know of?
- Does anyone have xenix they would like to give, sell cheap or trade
for RM/COS and an old version of real world accounting system?
- Can someone tell a little about the architecture of these machines?
I know they have a 68000 and a Z80 and I beleive that all I/O goes
through the Z80 and that the 68000 has offset/limit hardware for
protection. Any other interesting facts? Anyone have schematics
or bus signal description?
--
/* jallen@ic.sunysb.edu */ /* Amazing */ /* Joe Allen 129.49.12.74 */
int a[1817];main(z,p,q,r){for(p=80;q+p-80;p-=2*a[p])for(z=9;z--;)q=3&(r=time(0)
+r*57)/7,q=q?q-1?q-2?1-p%79?-1:0:p%79-77?1:0:p<1659?79:0:p>158?-79:0,q?!a[p+q*2
]?a[p+=a[p+=q]=q]=q:0:0;for(;q++-1817;)printf(q%79?"%c":"%c\n"," #"[!a[q-1]]);}nanook@eskimo.celestial.com (Robert Dinse) (05/19/91)
In article <1991May15.010705.16412@sbcs.sunysb.edu>, jallen@csserv2.ic.sunysb.edu (Joseph Allen) writes: > can someone tell me hardware requirements for various versions > of xenix (disk space, memory space, model, etc) There are various versions, anything newer than 1.03.05 requires a PAL chip upgrade to the CPU. I don't know any easy way of finding out if you have it or not other than trying to boot 3.00.00 or later off of floppy. All versions Tandy sold will fit on a 15 meg hard disk. It's a question of how much room you need for other applications. > - Does the version of xenix for these machines have: > C compiler & libraries The development system was a seperate item that had to be purchased seperately. The C compiler and libraries come with the development package. > Virtual memory No, the memory management hardware on the Tandy 6000 has only two offset and limit registers, the MC68000 doesn't support virtual memory, and even though they supplied a kernal for MC68010 in their 3.02.00 release, they did not take advantage of the virtual memory capability of the MC68010. > Any quirks I should know of? Lots.. Prior to 3.02.00 compilers were limited to 7 character symbols. Without an MMU upgrade you are limited to 1 meg of RAM (pretty confining on a machine without virtual memory). The stack, BSS, and Data segments share a common segmentation register and the stack is not dynamic, if it grows farther than the amount of space specified at compile time it will overwrite the BSS and Data segments causing programs to execute erratically before it gets far enough to cause a segmentation violation and core dump. Even the 3.02.00 development system compiler does not support void data types. GCC fixes some of these evils but it requires a lot of memory. I have 4-megs on this machine and that is marginal for GCC. 3.02.00 added auto-boot capability and the ability to format floppies while in Xenix instead of having to boot diskutil. But 3.02.00's init dies occasionally. The tty drivers for the 3-port boards on every version of Xenix I've used are flakey and lock-up under certain conditions. There are compatability problems between the disk controllers and certain drives. These do not seem to be consistant from one machine to the next. For what it's worth, I replaced the WD1010 with a WD2010 on my system and it was a worthwhile upgrade. For reasons I don't fully understand the WD2010 seems to work with some drives that the WD1010 didn't like.