Subject: Re: native NetBSD booter
To: <>
From: Sean-Paul Rees <sean@flame.org>
List: port-mac68k
Date: 01/30/1999 12:25:45
On Sat, 30 Jan 1999, Dr. Bill Studenmund wrote:

> Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1999 12:20:58 -0800 (PST)
> From: Dr. Bill Studenmund <wrstuden@loki.stanford.edu>
> To: Sean-Paul Rees <sean@flame.org>
> Cc: NetBSD/mac68k <port-mac68k@netbsd.org>
> Subject: Re: native NetBSD booter
> 
> On Sat, 30 Jan 1999, Sean-Paul Rees wrote:
> 
> > I'm curious, I've heard of A/UX which I understand is Apple's attempt at a
> > Unix. Does that run on a 68k and boot natively from a 68k without MacOS
> > help?
> 
> As far as I know, A/UX only ran on 68k macs. It was a full-blown UNIX. It
> had its quirks, but it was as UNIX-y as any other UNIX at the time. 
> 
> I believe the alice project, the folks who started the NetBSD/mac68k port,
> used A/UX for bootstraping and initial development. That's why we use A/UX
> partition codes. :-)
> 
> NetBSD/mac68k boots the same way A/UX did - the system starts up in MacOS,
> and then an application boots unix.
> 

Wow, it seems to me like older Macintosh can ONLY boot into MacOS. Seems
kind of strange. I like the extension idea, since I don't have to wait for
MacOS to finish booting before it starts the booter.

I'm not at all familiar with Macintosh/MacOS programming, so I have no
idea how this could be done.

Cheers,
Sean