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So much love! I worked on A/UX's original Unix port, wrote many of the drivers,the AppleTalk stack, made the thing field configurable so you could write your own drivers (at a time when kernels had drivers compiled in), and wrote the original event manager. I also got to debug the original Mac II hardware, and help fix it.

Our internal code name for the project was "Pigs in Space", Apple's was "Eagle", when theirs leaked to the press we were in the clear



Do you still have any of the relevant software or documentation?

I am looking for the Apple A/UX Device Driver Kit (APDA M8037/B), which should include a book titled “Building A/UX Device Drivers”. I am specifically interested in driver source code.

Here is an incomplete list of A/UX software and documentation of which I am aware. Helping preserve any of the missing items would be highly appreciated.

https://gist.github.com/mietek/174b27e879a7b83d502a351ea3aaa...

My contact information is in my profile.


I'm also looking for this documentation as I'm working on a new Ethernet card for the Mac SE/30.

http://www.mactothefuture.org/


If we can't find the docs try the BSD 4.1/4.2 docs, A/UX is essentially UniPlus which was vanilla AT&T System V with Berkeley 4.1 networking added, the Apple team upgraded things to BSD 4.2 networking by A/UX 3.0


I found some source code for UniPlus v1.5 for the Apple LISA.

https://github.com/arcanebyte/uniplus

The 3Com Ethernet driver looks very similar to the one from the 4.2 BSD distribution.

https://github.com/arcanebyte/uniplus/blob/master/v1.5/sys/i...

So I'll need to see if I can emulate how drivers are linked in and probed.


That's much older than A/UX, likely v7 or System III based with BSD4.1 networking

(We did both V7 and SIII ports to the Lisa)


Any luck looking for those A/UX materials? I have no way to contact you outside HN. Please drop me an email or a tweet.


Cool project! Do you have any plans to make these cards available to hobbyists when you have the drivers worked out?

I've always thought it would be amazing if somebody developed an ethernet interface for the 100-series powerbooks. It would certainly make it easier to transfer files to and from my trusty Powerbook 180.


Yeah, the plan is to open-source everything including PCB designs, drivers and CPLD firmware.

I'm not sure if it would be possible to redesign the card to fit in a Powerbook 100-series though. The Powerbook 180 appears to have a modem expansion slot but that doesn't give access to the processor bus AFAICS.


I'll have to go and look when I get home from xmas, I used to have a complete set of the v1.0 docs, I'm not sure I still have them though

I can probably help with drivers if you get stuck. (bearing in mind that it was 30 odd years ago)


Does A/UX use any kind of packaging format and is there a way to install it automatically over the network?


Sadly no, those are more of a Linux thing from at least a decade later


Hell no!!! They are a UNIX®️ thing, originating at AT&T!




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