by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Sunday October 09, 2016 @04:06AM (#53040883)
... What? Somebody makes 386BSD and releases version 0.1... and then works not only on a full, shiny 1.0, but also on a whole new generation (2.0)... and don't release the two latter ones? Just develop them and sit on them? What?! That's the real news. Not even an attempt to explain it, of course, so one is left with a hundred questions instead of learning anything.
Wasn't it possible with some 386 SX chips to drill a tiny hole in the CPU, and make it into a DX? Or was that an urban myth, like drilling a headphone jack into your new iPhone?
He's probably thinking of the 486DX. The original 486 had an FPU, but the yields were low so Intel split the line into the 486SX (no FPU) and the 486DX (with FPU). Some motherboards let you plug in a 487 as an external FPU, but this was often really just a 486DX that took over completely. The 486SX was identical to the DX, but had the FPU disabled. It was possible to reenable it, and it would typically work most of the time. For gaming, this was fine (the occasional floating point error probably didn't make a difference) and was a cheap way of getting much more performance.
How can this get a +5, Informative, when there are two huge errors in this post that make it completely misleading? 1) The line wasn't split because of low yields. It was a marketing decision. By disabling the FPU (and later not including it at all) in one of the lines, Intel was able to sell part of 486 chips at a lower price but still profitably to people who wouldn't have been willing to buy the DX at full price. Alternatively phrased, the DX could be sold at a higher price than if the SX had not existed.
no, it was not. 486SX were made using different mask set and had no FPU inside. Im guessing you are to young to ever own real hardware, and read about reenabling fpu on some random website:(
I don't imagine it was terribly popular (the Pentium-M pin mod/overclock). I only knew about it because a co-worker (successfully) tried it on an old notebook his dad had given him. He couldn't get anyone to take it on craigslist and basically figured "If it dies oh well".
1.0 isn't lost. Just that the number of people actually caring and running it (in emulation) is about 10. The source and binaries in the original distribution should be freely distributable, the full ISO probably isn't. Hence the reluctance to host it publicly. If you know the right people you can get it through a coughing man in a raincoat together with the wiped first distribution of NetBSD,
I think there's an InfoMagic CD-ROM set with this 386BSD version and also a pre 1.0 NetBSD on it. It's over there somewhere in that pile against the wall here.
The Jolitzes also wrote a book [amazon.com] on the codebase that appears to still be available.
You'd be surprised at how much code is out there that haven't been released just because there is a minor bug to be fixed or some strange problem to be solved. A lot of the people I know have hundreds of projects that have been on hold or abandoned for things more interesting.
Also, the difference between 0.1 and 1.0 might not be as big as the numbers hint at, they are just arbitrary version numbers after all. As we know from software like Windows, Foxit Reader and PSP it even happens that the best version isn
Kiddo, I am really serious concerned of your reading ability. SERIOUSLY. It clearly reads "The last known public release was version 0.1" It should be so easy to understand that 1.0 and 2.0 are versions that were not released to public until today ?? Finish your school before comment.
1.0 was released as CD-ROM, but by that time everyone was running NetBSD, FreeBSD or Linux on their x86 boxen. In the circle of maybe 10 people that actually care about historical stuff like this it was known there was a 2.0, but unknown where and if it was ever released by the Jolitzes.
Bizarre and nonsensical summary as usual. (Score:4, Insightful)
... What? Somebody makes 386BSD and releases version 0.1... and then works not only on a full, shiny 1.0, but also on a whole new generation (2.0)... and don't release the two latter ones? Just develop them and sit on them? What?! That's the real news. Not even an attempt to explain it, of course, so one is left with a hundred questions instead of learning anything.
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Maybe now it runs on a 386SX....
Wasn't it possible with some 386 SX chips to drill a tiny hole in the CPU, and make it into a DX? Or was that an urban myth, like drilling a headphone jack into your new iPhone?
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Re:Bizarre and nonsensical summary as usual. (Score:5, Informative)
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How can this get a +5, Informative, when there are two huge errors in this post that make it completely misleading?
1) The line wasn't split because of low yields. It was a marketing decision. By disabling the FPU (and later not including it at all) in one of the lines, Intel was able to sell part of 486 chips at a lower price but still profitably to people who wouldn't have been willing to buy the DX at full price. Alternatively phrased, the DX could be sold at a higher price than if the SX had not existed.
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The 486SX was released to put the hurt on AMD's 386s. IIRC Intel sold the early 486SX at a loss with a disabled math co just to try to undercut AMD.
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>It was possible to reenable it
no, it was not. 486SX were made using different mask set and had no FPU inside. Im guessing you are to young to ever own real hardware, and read about reenabling fpu on some random website :(
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Yes it was. Initially. Only later runs had the entire FPU removed.
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That was an April fool's joke in a German computer magazine, all including a drilling mask.
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I guess they did make a 1.0 release with Dr. Dobb's Journal - and it has been lost in history. But I am glad it's back now.
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I guess they did make a 1.0 release with Dr. Dobb's Journal - and it has been lost in history. But I am glad it's back now.
Now to bring back Dr Dobb's....
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1.0 isn't lost. Just that the number of people actually caring and running it (in emulation) is about 10. The source and binaries in the original distribution should be freely distributable, the full ISO probably isn't. Hence the reluctance to host it publicly. If you know the right people you can get it through a coughing man in a raincoat together with the wiped first distribution of NetBSD,
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I think there's an InfoMagic CD-ROM set with this 386BSD version and also a pre 1.0 NetBSD on it. It's over there somewhere in that pile against the wall here.
The Jolitzes also wrote a book [amazon.com] on the codebase that appears to still be available.
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Five books, actually!
Volume 1: The Basic Kernel [peerllc.com]
Volume 2: The Virtual Memory System [peerllc.com]
Volume 3: Sockets Operating System [peerllc.com]
Volume 4: TCP/IP Networking Protocol [peerllc.com]
Volume 5: 386BSD: From the Inside Out [peerllc.com]
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You'd be surprised at how much code is out there that haven't been released just because there is a minor bug to be fixed or some strange problem to be solved.
A lot of the people I know have hundreds of projects that have been on hold or abandoned for things more interesting.
Also, the difference between 0.1 and 1.0 might not be as big as the numbers hint at, they are just arbitrary version numbers after all.
As we know from software like Windows, Foxit Reader and PSP it even happens that the best version isn
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Kiddo, I am really serious concerned of your reading ability. SERIOUSLY. It clearly reads "The last known public release was version 0.1" It should be so easy to understand that 1.0 and 2.0 are versions that were not released to public until today ?? Finish your school before comment.
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The question is "why", idiot.
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I have the 1.0 ISO, it comes with enough source code to rebuild the installed system.
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1.0 was released as CD-ROM, but by that time everyone was running NetBSD, FreeBSD or Linux on their x86 boxen. In the circle of maybe 10 people that actually care about historical stuff like this it was known there was a 2.0, but unknown where and if it was ever released by the Jolitzes.
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Better because simpler, worse because obsolete.
Lacks features of FreeBSD, security of OpenBSD and portability of NetBSD. But it should be good for learning, like Minix.