Mac "Workgroup Server" (or "network server") hardware & AIX

[Jerry Kemp]

On 04/26/16 10:21 AM, Swift Griggs wrote:
>
> Has anyone ever seen either A/UX or AIX running on an Apple Network Server
> or Apple Workgroup Server?

A/UX did not run on PPC hardware.  The AIX that ran on ANS boxes (Apple Network 
Servers) was a special deviant, and, among other issues, required Apple ROMs to 
boot.  ANS boxes were physically much closer to Apple hardware of the time vs 
IBM hardware.   I consider this to be a good article on the ANS box:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Network_Server

I don't have any additional helpful hints as to getting this special version of 
AIX up and running, aside from hunting down and purchasing an ANS box.

If you figure out something new in regards to the ANS, or its specialized 
version of AIX, please share.

However,

A/UX - another Apple Unix that (originally) only ran on specific hardware. 
There is now an emulation project called "ShoeBill" that will allow you to run 
A/UX on top of other hardware.

Hit up duckduckgo.com to search for specific details/FAQ's/etc.

download (Shoebill) code from here::

https://github.com/pruten/Shoebill/

And,

AIX - disclaimer - nothing modern going on here either.

AIX 1.x, among other CPU's, also ran on x86 hardware.  I am close to having AIX 
1.x running in Bochs::

http://bochs.sourceforge.net/

On top of Oracle Solaris on x86/x64.

enjoy,

Jerry


> I had several hundred AIX machines running in a
> server farm for a while, but even the oldest was POWER4 based, and I've only
> done a bit of legacy support for PPC60x-based RS/6000 systems. I don't
> belive I've ever seen an ANS or AWS IRL.
>
> I'm curious what the last version of AIX that will run on them.  I'm
> guessing 4.x.  I'm also curious if there is one machine that can run A/UX,
> AIX, MacOS, and NetBSD.
>
> Here's a fun fact to know and tell. In addition to an SGI Irix screen
> running the "fsn" tool in the movie Jurassic Park, there were several
> screenshots of a workstation in that same room/scene running A/UX.
>
> -Swift
>