UTek (V) filesystems and boot blocks (with some OT Tek rambliings)

I'm not as sure about UTekV, but the earlier Utek versions did use a pure 4.2BSD filesystem structure. I recall the big fuss over converting Utek away from a BSD base to a SystemV base, and thus, I'm wondering if the XD88 and other machines that ran UtekV may actually have a more standardized SystemV layout. As for the boot block and partition tables -- you've got me there -- I'm pretty sure that they are totally unique to Tektronix, not matching anything by BSD, Sun, DEC, SGI or other. I seem to recall that the first logical cylinder of the drive is allocated to the partition table and boot blocks, but that is a *very* old memory, and subject to wetware bitrot. Of couse, that also is only for the older BSD-based Utek. Once I get through this house building stuff, I've got to dig out the old Tek 6130, 4132 and 4319 and fire them up, at least to grab disk images. Hope they'll still run. I had a lot of fun in the old days at Tektronix. I built a 6130 from parts ordered through Tek's Engineering Stockroom, at cost+10%, allowing me to put together a nice little Unix system at a time when everyone else was running CP/M and Apple & Atari floppy-based Disk Operating Systems. The 6130 was a desktop form-factor Utek workstation with 32016 CPU, ST-506 disk interface (usually with a Micropolis 20 or 40MB hard disk), 5 1/4" floppy drive, 1MB of RAM standard with expansion boards that could push it up to a whopping 5MB, two serial ports, a GPIB port, an AUI Ethernet port, and add-on boards that offered Dual RS232, Dual Parallel (Centronics), add-on RAM, SCSI, and GPIB. Later, I got a 4132, which was essentially a redesign of the 6130 that eliminated the ST-506 interface, replacing it with a built-in SCSI interface, and replacing the floppy drive with a QIC-24 cartridge tape drive. Then, even later, I got a 4319, which was the "2nd generation" Unix workstation machine from Tek. They abandoned the National 32xxx architecture and went with a Motorola 68K (68020, I believe), ported Utek (and made some enhancements, mostly in the network stack, which really was bad un the 320xx-based Utek), and added a built-in framebuffer and X11. The XD88 was the end of the line for Tek in the computer workstation biz. Used the Motorola 88K, and really had some great innovations, especially in the graphics engine, which (for the time) was quite amazing. A great machine for doing CAD, visualization, and the like. Never did manage to get my hands on one of those machines. Tektronix was really fickle when it came to computers. I can tell the story of the Tektronix "Magnolia", which was an amazing machine that long predated the 320xx-based 620x and 613x machines. Magnolia was never made into a product, but it was could have been if Tek would have understood the market. The machine was based on the Motorola 68000. It was a standalone machine, with the hard disk drive (an 8" Micropolis fixed drive, 40MB, I believe, with a parallel, semi-SCSI-like interface), in the base of a pedestal, CPU and raster graphics engine in the pedestal, with an integrated keyboard and a simplistic three button mouse, with the monochrome monitor sitting on top. It was a noisy machine as there were a lot of fans to cool everything, and the disk drive was really noisy. The biggest problem they had with them was that people sitting at the machine tended to move their feet, kicking the pedestal...right where the hard disk drive was, which tended to cause disk crashes. I recall that the machine ran a V7 UNIX kernel, with a windowed GUI, which I seem to recall being somewhat derivative of the early Xerox PARC window environments. I recall that some folks in the development team had come from PARC. The primary development language on the machines was SmallTalk. The machines were truly way ahead of their time. This was all in the late '70's timeframe, before Sun even existed, and predating Xerox PARC's producized machines (though PARC did have numerous different machines running in their labs). If Tek had seized this opportunity, and implemented the marketing, sales & support well, they could have gotten a great start in what became the boom of the computer workstation market. Needless to say, the Magnolia never made it to market. I wonder what happened to all of the pre-production machines that I used to see in use all the time in Building 50 at the Tek main campus. This is a very historical machine, even though it didn't make it to market, and hopefully, someone out there has one or more squirrelled away somewhere, and someday it'll come to light. Sorry for the rambling...the days I was at Tektronix were really memorable, and when people start talking about old Tek stuff, I can't help it! Rick Bensene The Old Calculator Web Museum http://oldcalculatormuseum.com