Amiga questions you've always been too embarrassed to ask

[jizmo]

Originally Posted by hth313

I am by no means an expert on this, but there is a command called 'open' on macOS that is used to open (run) an application from the the command line as if you clicked on it. It detaches and returns to the shell when the application opens (in its own window). Normally you probably do not use it as you click to start or select from the dock.

Exactly. The 'open' command will treat an application or file as if it was launched from Finder, so that data files open up in the program they're associated with.

Additionally, adding the -a option will pop up an application and return to the terminal prompt. I'm not that familiar with Unix/PC side that much, so I don't know if there's anything similar exists there.

[kolla]

Apple's "open" is (almost) equivalent to Amiga WBRun/WBLoad.

[Jope]

Originally Posted by kolla

So do anyone recall ARP?

Sure, I still run it in my 1.3 Amiga. Sometimes it's a bit problematic - if you boot off a disk with no dos commands, the ones on the HDD require arp.library.. An easy fix thankfully. :-)

Much of ARP was actually included into the OS with V36. Commodore purchased the project.

[NLS]

ARP was pretty much the default back in 1.3 for a more "modern" experience.
Damn I miss those years.
Seeing a better requester was news to share with friends on the phone.

[hth313]

Originally Posted by Jope

Sure, I still run it in my 1.3 Amiga. Sometimes it's a bit problematic - if you boot off a disk with no dos commands, the ones on the HDD require arp.library.. An easy fix thankfully. :-)

Much of ARP was actually included into the OS with V36. Commodore purchased the project.

Are you sure? I read in the Amiga Transactor magazine that Commodore was offered to include ARP and declined, mainly because ARP was written in assembly and Commodore wanted to use C.

I recall that there was some inconsistency with the tilde operator and command line regular expressions. I think it had the wrong precedence in ARP. Commodore implemented correct behaviour, but as a result you often had to wrap the expression after the tilde in parentheses.

[Jope]

Not 100% sure, but I remember seeing multiple references to this.

[malko]

Originally Posted by jope

sure, i still run it in my 1.3 amiga. [...]

+1

[rcman]

I've installed kickstart roms 3.1.4 and AmigaDos 3.1.4 with CDROM. If I want to burn a CDROM on my PC so the Amiga can read it should it be in joliet format?

Thanks
RC

[slaapliedje]

Originally Posted by rcman

I've installed kickstart roms 3.1.4 and AmigaDos 3.1.4 with CDROM. If I want to burn a CDROM on my PC so the Amiga can read it should it be in joliet format?

Thanks
RC

That should work fine. The only time I have had an issue is when it is a mixed audio/data disk. For some reason I couldn't get the Heart of the Alien port to burn right.

[slaapliedje]

Why are there so many alternative 68060 libraries? I would think there would be one that detects the variants of the CPU and enable the features based on that?

[Daedalus]

Yep, modern Amiga CD filesystems, including those shipped with OS 3.5, 3.9 and 3.1.4, will have no problem reading a PC (Joliet) formatted CD. You can also burn on the Amiga with Amiga extensions if you want to keep Amiga-specific file properties, such as protection bits and comments.

Originally Posted by slaapliedje

Why are there so many alternative 68060 libraries? I would think there would be one that detects the variants of the CPU and enable the features based on that?

There is - the ThoR CPU library archive includes a CPU library that should work with pretty much any 68060 out there, and the same for the other 680x0 CPUs. The reason there are more of them floating around is because different manufacturers used different features and firmware on their boards, all of which possibly require slightly different software setups.

[Hewitson]

Originally Posted by hth313

I am by no means an expert on this, but there is a command called 'open' on macOS that is used to open (run) an application from the the command line as if you clicked on it. It detaches and returns to the shell when the application opens (in its own window). Normally you probably do not use it as you click to start or select from the dock. I suppose there might be a way to start without stating 'open' on the application (bundle), but I have never bothered about it as I tend to start from the dock and leave it running.

No one ever mentioned we were discussing using an external command instead of the default behaviour of the shell. 'open' is not how you would usually run a command on macOS, therefore it is completely irrelevant.

Originally Posted by hth313

Otherwise macOS is a UNIX so it behaves as Linux, if you do something that blocks the shell, you can always ctrl-z and then send it to background if desired.

I was going to tell you that you were completely wrong there, but decided to look it up before doing so. Amazingly, macOS is actually a certified Unix! No Linux (or BSD) distributions seem to be certified. Odd, considering BSD is much more Unix-like than macOS.

[Locutus]

'UNIX Certification' is pretty much meaningless

[slaapliedje]

Originally Posted by Locutus

'UNIX Certification' is pretty much meaningless

Ha, that is what I was going to say.
Unix itself is all but dead these days, with most having moved to Linux or one of the BSDs. Hell, even Microsoft is including Linux in Windows these days....

[NLS]

Actually:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XNU
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_(operating_system)

[hth313]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

No one ever mentioned we were discussing using an external command instead of the default behaviour of the shell. 'open' is not how you would usually run a command on macOS, therefore it is completely irrelevant.

I mentioned it for completeness as I know that not everyone always tells the whole scenario, perhaps thinking it has no relevance or taking it for granted.

If you have a habit of starting things from the command line on macOS, you can do so, but for application bundles (GUI apps, which is relevant here), you need to use 'open'.

I was going to tell you that you were completely wrong there, but decided to look it up before doing so. Amazingly, macOS is actually a certified Unix! No Linux (or BSD) distributions seem to be certified. Odd, considering BSD is much more Unix-like than macOS.

Amazing, I did not know that, even though I can now recall having heard of that UNIX certification at some point in the past.

Well, for me, if it passes my duck test I call it a UNIX. I have become used to and accept the various differences in package handling and how they sprinkle things around in '/etc' (and elsewhere).

I agree with you, the most genuine UNIX we have today is BSD, and it is apparently not a real UNIX, LOL.

If I were to get a vintage/retro UNIX experience today, the best bet is to pick some of the BSD variants around and run it on some retro hardware, or a small dev board.

To go slightly off topic, I once worked on Windows (15 years ago) and tried to tame it somehow using a multiscreen desktop and using Emacs (do not even get me started on cygwin). It was always a frustrating half-working experience full of nasty surprises. After that 4 year stint, I sat down at my A3000 which was running NetBSD at the time having to fix some stuff in the system, using Emacs. Quickly my mind went into auto and mapped the steps to use to accomplish the task. Then I felt frustration fully boiling up inside of me, feeling that nothing would work as usual. After a couple of seconds, in fully agitated mode, it dawned to me. No, I am on a UNIX now, it will just work. I took several deep breaths to calm myself down, literally. Then followed the steps my mind initially plotted out, and it just all worked.

[DofD]

Originally Posted by slaapliedje

Ha, that is what I was going to say.
Unix itself is all but dead these days, with most having moved to Linux or one of the BSDs. Hell, even Microsoft is including Linux in Windows these days....

UNIX (ala it's varients like AIX and Solaris) is far from dead. It all depends on the industry and application. I will grant that Linux and BSD are more visible and common today.

[slaapliedje]

Originally Posted by DofD

UNIX (ala it's varients like AIX and Solaris) is far from dead. It all depends on the industry and application. I will grant that Linux and BSD are more visible and common today.

Sorry, read that 'all but dead' as in 'used only in specific industries like financial institutions and various other places where uptime goes into the astronomical areas (literally, like I think NASA probably still uses some various UNIX systems).


AIX is pretty sweet. Solaris, I'm not sure where it's still being used, probably on some hardware that people want to move away from it, but can't for various reasons. Poor Sun.

[DofD]

Originally Posted by slaapliedje

Sorry, read that 'all but dead' as in 'used only in specific industries like financial institutions and various other places where uptime goes into the astronomical areas (literally, like I think NASA probably still uses some various UNIX systems).


AIX is pretty sweet. Solaris, I'm not sure where it's still being used, probably on some hardware that people want to move away from it, but can't for various reasons. Poor Sun.

Oh heck, no worries! Linux and BSD have replaced many of the traditional implementations of other Unix type systems. I work in/with medical and pharmacy real time processing systems and the big Unix systems aren't really going anywhere.

I really like AIX. I actually have a bunch of PPC RS6000 AIX machines at home that have been discarded over the years/decades and they are still rock solid.

Solaris on the other hand... Ever since Oracle bought Sun... Argh... We are using Solaris on SPARC at the moment because that is what the client wanted.

[Locutus]

Originally Posted by hth313

If I were to get a vintage/retro UNIX experience today, the best bet is to pick some of the BSD variants around and run it on some retro hardware, or a small dev board.

If you want a truely hilarious retro experience, try RetroBSD:


https://github.com/RetroBSD/retrobsd


BSD2.11 for MIPS based PIC32 Microcontrollers.


One of the nice things is that the codebase has been cleaned up to compile with GCC so its useful to loan from for other purposes too. On my Amiga setups i use a RetroBSD derived userland for my ixemul shell environment.