AIX 1.3/x86 emulation

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foregam
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AIX 1.3/x86 emulation

Post by foregam »

Hello,

I found a copy of AIX 1.3 for Intel x86 and I want to give it a try. Unfortunately neither bochs nor qemu manage to boot it. Is there a program which provides MCA emulation and/or supports PS/2 BIOS calls?

Thanks in advance.

louisw3
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Re: AIX 1.3/x86 emulation

Post by louisw3 »

Virtual PC 2004 (no service pack) will do it. But AIX is ... touchy and doesn't support any NIC that VPC 2004 does... so you have to load SLIP.

Honestly SYSVr3 isn't worth the effort.
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foregam
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Re: AIX 1.3/x86 emulation

Post by foregam »

Yeah, I know it can be touchy. I really wanted to play a bit with AIXwindows though, see if I would be able to use X remotely, etc. I read somewhere that if an emulator can run OS/2 1.3, it will run AIX 1.3 too. Anyway, Virtual PC is not an option, unless it can run on Windows inside of VirtualBox/VMware which I very much doubt :)

Darkstar
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Re: AIX 1.3/x86 emulation

Post by Darkstar »

The problem here is the MCA, AFAIK nobody has even started emulating an MCA system (not even the MESS guys and they have some very fancy/rare hardware emulated)
Sad but true. There is probably enough documentation on MCA out there.

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louisw3
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Re: AIX 1.3/x86 emulation

Post by louisw3 »

Darkstar wrote:The problem here is the MCA, AFAIK nobody has even started emulating an MCA system (not even the MESS guys and they have some very fancy/rare hardware emulated)
Sad but true. There is probably enough documentation on MCA out there.

-Darkstar
It doesn't matter, AIX 1.3 also ran on 'AT clones'. The only 'catch' the disk set that is going round, has disks 1&2 mixed up....
"Those who don't understand UNIX are condemned to reinvent it, poorly." – Henry Spencer

Darkstar
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Re: AIX 1.3/x86 emulation

Post by Darkstar »

louisw3 wrote:It doesn't matter, AIX 1.3 also ran on 'AT clones'. The only 'catch' the disk set that is going round, has disks 1&2 mixed up....
Ah, that probably explains why it didn't boot for me when I tried it :)

anyway, a true MCA emulator would be cool. Somehow. Although I don't know of any software that was only available on MCA machines and nothing else, so the usefulness is debatable.

-Darkstar
I upload stuff to archive.org from time to time. See here for everything that doesn't fit BA

foregam
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Re: AIX 1.3/x86 emulation

Post by foregam »

Darkstar wrote: anyway, a true MCA emulator would be cool. Somehow. Although I don't know of any software that was only available on MCA machines and nothing else, so the usefulness is debatable.
I meant to say a complete PS/2 emulator implementing MCA, although, as you say, its usefulness would be debatable.

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Re: AIX 1.3/x86 emulation

Post by louisw3 »

well I can't think of one thing that really was... all that MCA specific. Even IBM knew that making OS/2 MCA centered would be suicide...

I guess it really all goes back to the PS/2 being a disaster.

Now if you wanted to talk 1st gen RS/6000 then.... yeah, you need MCA for sure.

I just wish I held onto that box of old stuff like NT alpha's and AIX 3.2.1 tapes better. :(
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foregam
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Re: AIX 1.3/x86 emulation

Post by foregam »

louisw3 wrote: I guess it really all goes back to the PS/2 being a disaster.
My impression is that PS/2's failure was mostly due to its closed design and expensive royalties. The hardware was actually pretty good, and the 16550 UART and VGA deservedly became industry standards.

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Re: AIX 1.3/x86 emulation

Post by sunscreen »

louisw3 wrote:well I can't think of one thing that really was... all that MCA specific. Even IBM knew that making OS/2 MCA centered would be suicide...

I guess it really all goes back to the PS/2 being a disaster.
That's not IBM-thinking... I am sure they didn't give a [censored]. Adding AT support was kind of unsupported "if you absolutely must run it on weird hardware" (weird from IBM's point of view).

The PS/1 was a disaster in any respect. The PS/2 very successfull for a while, and technically there was not much left to be desired except for being "closed" and thus mostly IBM-only (there were some 3rd party MCA machines, but they're even more rare).
louisw3 wrote:I just wish I held onto that box of old stuff like NT alpha's and AIX 3.2.1 tapes better. :(
Can't help you with NT alpha's, but I have about every AIX 1.x, 2.x, 3.x and 4.x version you'd ever want to try ;)

geophoto3
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Re: AIX 1.3/x86 emulation

Post by geophoto3 »

I know I'm late to the party - just got here. Sorry.
The OP asked about emulation. I run Aix 1.3 on VirtualPC, and you actually can run it on versions later than 2004. I've got it running on 2007 64-bit right now. The secret is that you have to disable hardware virtualization under "Options" in VPC. Another trick that helps run a bunch of unsupported operating systems in VirtualPC is to set your affinity to one core only. Multi-core cpu's screw up VirtualPC pretty bad. Using these two trick I am able to run a bunch of stuff including BeOS 4.5, Aix, Plan9 and a few others that won't normally run under VirtualPC.

Note that this does NOT work in the new version, "Windows Virtual PC" - these tricks are only for the standalone version of VirtualPC.

I'm not using VirtualPC anymore, but I have a TON of systems already installed in it, and I didn't want to go through the trouble of moving to other emulators.

louisw3
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Re: AIX 1.3/x86 emulation

Post by louisw3 »

geophoto3 wrote:I know I'm late to the party - just got here. Sorry.
The OP asked about emulation. I run Aix 1.3 on VirtualPC, and you actually can run it on versions later than 2004. I've got it running on 2007 64-bit right now. The secret is that you have to disable hardware virtualization under "Options" in VPC. Another trick that helps run a bunch of unsupported operating systems in VirtualPC is to set your affinity to one core only. Multi-core cpu's screw up VirtualPC pretty bad. Using these two trick I am able to run a bunch of stuff including BeOS 4.5, Aix, Plan9 and a few others that won't normally run under VirtualPC.

Note that this does NOT work in the new version, "Windows Virtual PC" - these tricks are only for the standalone version of VirtualPC.

I'm not using VirtualPC anymore, but I have a TON of systems already installed in it, and I didn't want to go through the trouble of moving to other emulators.
thanks for the tip!
"Those who don't understand UNIX are condemned to reinvent it, poorly." – Henry Spencer

foregam
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Re: AIX 1.3/x86 emulation

Post by foregam »

geophoto3 wrote:I know I'm late to the party - just got here. Sorry.
The OP asked about emulation. I run Aix 1.3 on VirtualPC, and you actually can run it on versions later than 2004. I've got it running on 2007 64-bit right now. The secret is that you have to disable hardware virtualization under "Options" in VPC. Another trick that helps run a bunch of unsupported operating systems in VirtualPC is to set your affinity to one core only. Multi-core cpu's screw up VirtualPC pretty bad. Using these two trick I am able to run a bunch of stuff including BeOS 4.5, Aix, Plan9 and a few others that won't normally run under VirtualPC.

Note that this does NOT work in the new version, "Windows Virtual PC" - these tricks are only for the standalone version of VirtualPC.

I'm not using VirtualPC anymore, but I have a TON of systems already installed in it, and I didn't want to go through the trouble of moving to other emulators.
Thanks a lot, I'll try it on Windows then.
sunscreen wrote:Can't help you with NT alpha's, but I have about every AIX 1.x, 2.x, 3.x and 4.x version you'd ever want to try
Great, could you upload the older (>10 yrs old) releases? I'll have to look for a POWER/PowerPC emulator I guess.

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Re: AIX 1.3/x86 emulation

Post by z180 »

The PS/2 is so much different because it makes better use of the 386 CPUs and has
a additional 32bit ABIOS layer
and other companies copied not only the first IBM PC but all the improved models, too.

Some guys believed that OS/2 and AIX booted ONLY on PS/2 .
Stephen Elop….I curse you, that after your death your soul will be forever trapped in the sourcecode of Windows and one day Microsoft will fall because of that virus code!

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