Talk:A/UX

manual

FYI, I have more-or-less complete manual sets for 1.0 and 2.0, should anybody need references to cite on specific points. Stan 22:52, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Missed opportunity

This could have been the next generation of the Mac OS. Since it can run most Mac applications this could. Since this this also could have saved the the System 7 and other classical Mac OS apps> —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.109.71.106 (talk) 23:53, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

That certainly may be true - but we need to have a primary source saying so. The article reports on what has been written on the topic by notable sources, not what we as editors think. MFNickster 20:26, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I had A/UX running on an SE/30, and could probably locate it since I'm still in touch with the fellow I gave all my classic-era Mac stuff to. Performance was definitely an issue on the SE/30, and I don't think that the approach they used would have been practical as a replacement for Mac OS in the '90s... it seemed more like Blue Box / Classic than NeXTStep/Yellow Box/Cocoa. -- Resuna (talk) 13:43, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

PLEASE!

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the A/UX article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.126.242.132 (talk) 00:41, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Hmm...

wasn't this used by the government? i remember reading that they required Unix. I'll add it in. -HuBmaN!!!! 19:15, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

yes apple designed the Machintosh IIFX specifically to the needs of the US government, it's nothing special really but the US government did require unix (and still does) that's why Mac OS X is so popular with nasa and so on. Markthemac (talk) 17:36, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Finder as a Unix-Task?

Actually running an A/UX box since a long time I think this is a wrong statement. Looking on the output of ps -edf on such a box, you'll see:

    UID   PID  PPID  C    STIME TTY      TIME COMMAND
   root     0     0  0 23:48:56 ?        0:00 swapper
   root     1     0  0 23:48:56 ?        0:01 /etc/init 
   root     2     0  0 23:48:56 ?        0:00 vhand
   root     3     0  0 23:48:56 ?        0:00 kmemd
   root     4     0  0 23:48:56 ?        0:00 asiod
   root     5     0  0 23:48:56 ?        0:00 asiod
   root     6     0  0 23:48:56 ?        0:00 asiod
   root     7     0  0 23:48:56 ?        0:00 asiod
   root     8     0  0 23:48:56 ?        0:00 syncd
   root   149     1  0 23:49:30 ?        0:00 /etc/rpc.lockd 
   root    11     1  0 23:48:57 ?        0:01 /etc/fidd 
    poc   166     1  0 23:49:35 console  0:02 sh /mac/bin/mac32 
   root   127     1  0 23:49:28 ?        0:00 /usr/lib/errdemon 
    poc   179   166  1 23:49:52 console  0:17 /mac/bin/startmac 
   root   132     1  0 23:49:29 ?        0:00 /etc/portmap 
   root   135     1  0 23:49:29 ?        0:00 /etc/ypbind -ypsetme 
   root   138     1  0 23:49:29 ?        0:00 /etc/cron 
   root   141     1  0 23:49:30 ?        0:00 /etc/biod 4 
   root   142     1  0 23:49:30 ?        0:00 /etc/biod 4 
   root   143     1  0 23:49:30 ?        0:00 /etc/biod 4 
   root   144     1  0 23:49:30 ?        0:00 /etc/biod 4 
   root   147     1  0 23:49:30 ?        0:00 /etc/rpc.statd 
   root   156     1  0 23:49:31 ?        0:00 /etc/in.routed 
   root   158     1  0 23:49:32 ?        0:00 /etc/inetd 
    poc   180   166  0 23:49:52 console  0:02 /mac/bin/CommandShell -u 
   root   161     1  0 23:49:32 ?        0:00 /etc/syslogd 
   root   181   158  2 23:51:19 p0       0:00 in.telnetd c0a83b05.55515 
    poc   182   181  6 23:51:19 p0       0:01 -bash 
    poc   189   182 29 23:51:26 p0       0:00 ps -edf

So, there's no Finder as a Unix-Task itself but the CommandShell is a true hybrid application which runs in both environments concurrently. I verified that by quitting CommandShell from the Finder and looking on ps -edf again. CommandShell has vanished on both worlds.

I'd be very interested if I miss something or the information in the article is just wrong.

--217.28.105.2 (talk) 21:52, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

All processes running under A/UX are Unix processes, but the Finder interface is emulated by startmac/mac32.

The file directory in the A/UX 3.0 documentation describes them this way:

• /mac/bin/startmac - binary executable for startmac(1) - start the A/UX Finder environment
• /mac/bin/startmac24 - binary executable for startmac24(24-bit version of startmac(1))
• /mac/bin/mac24 - executable shell script for mac24(launch the 24-bit Macintosh environment)
• /mac/bin/mac32 - executable shell script for mac32(launch the 32-bit Macintosh environment)

MFNickster (talk) 00:54, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

History

Please write history section, who's idea to create (what year), why create, how much time used for develop this OS, who manage project, etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 27.74.183.38 (talk) 23:41, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Would it be appropriate to list that it's code name was OREO? JSadler (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 04:29, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Do you have a source? QVVERTYVS (hm?) 10:02, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

I have/had a paper copy but no online references. JSadler (talk) 09:02, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

Reception and decline

@Smuckola: I actually thought the review fit the "Decline" section rather well because it indicates why A/UX failed in the marketplace. Can I move it back? QVVERTYVS (hm?) 19:52, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

@Qwertyus:Well, no, I'm sorry, my friend. Reviews are reception. And a single review upon the product doesn't conclusively dictate why an entire platform disappeared over the course of many years. Yes it's relevant, but it's for the reader to decide. In some cases, a review might be slightly excerpted or just passively cited as part of the overall synthesis. Especially if that's a more modern retrospective review, taking comprehensive history into account. It's a matter of logical and material factors vs. individual reception. But my goodness you've found such wonderful sources and written such a great synthesis thereof, as long as you keep the tense correct. Your work is enlightening, and often drastically missing from such arcane subjects. We often have no reception information at all for such things. Your discovery made me happy. ;) I just expanded MacMach too, btw, lol. — Smuckola (Email) (Talk) 20:06, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

I see your point, but having a single review as a section by itself is also a bit unbalanced; as if InfoWorld alone determines how good a product A/UX was. I'll try to see if I can restructure the article into a technical history and a market adoption/reception/business part, avoiding the section title "Decline".

(I tend to mix up the tenses, sorry about that.) QVVERTYVS (hm?) 20:41, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

@Qwertyus: Well, it's not primarily about balance of raw new content yet, because we're lacking in some of that. It's a bit more about providing the overall necessary structure, and the whole article is increasingly balanced by the presence of a Reception section. There must be a Reception section, even if it was totally empty with {{empty section}}. It can have a {{expand section|reason=More reviews.}} tag if it makes you feel better—which is ugly and obvious but is ok, as a request to others. However, no inherently encyclopedic content (NPOV, RS, etc as the prose currently stands) makes the implications you're concerned about. To put it cynically, anyone who could think that would be too dumb to read an encyclopedia. ;) The presence of the Reception section is really good, and puts it in the standardized format along with the rest of the encyclopedia. As for your ideas about the overall structure, that sounds good, because I'm not entirely sure what the role of WP:OR may be, when the course of history's events obvious to computer enthusiasts like us. It should probably say "Market decline" if anything for somewhat more objectivity, and have a RS stating it as being such, in terms of sales figures. Ideally, the section titles should normally include "Overview", "History" (which can include "Adoption" like with NASA or "Market decline", "Usage", "Reception", "Legacy" (oh that'd be sweet). That would be a lot of content from a lot of sources or a few really big sources. Maybe some reception info could be culled even from articles about a successor such as Apple Network Server. Maybe Jag has some magazines. ;) — Smuckola (Email) (Talk) 21:09, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

@Qwertyus: You did a really good job on this today. I almost never get any collaboration on retro tech subjects but you really blasted off. I was writing at the same time and got an edit conflict, so I waited a while. I had changed the same thing to "History". I am hoping that we can find a RS which ties A/UX's legacy into Macintosh Application Environment (MAE) or into Quicktime for Unix-like systems. I used to be friends with a guy who was a manager for A/UX who said that when they canceled A/UX, they looked for ways to retarget the still-hot technology core which is the paravirtualization and Unix integration of System 7, so it became MAE. I don't know if any of this is related to Star Trek, but I expect so. He also worked at SGI in collaboration with Apple, on porting Quicktime to IRIX (and I also knew an Apple engineer who secretly ported Quicktime to RedHat Linux, and an outside contractor who ported Quicktime to OS/2 but anyway). I hope you see another article I worked really hard on a long time ago, Star Trek project. That thing is so crazy (and sick) that someone wrote a big part of a book about a secret, unreleased project. — Smuckola (Email) (Talk) 03:28, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Current implementation

I disagree with the rationale behind this revert, that the discontinuation of one implementation implies that no other implemenations exist. I sincerely doubt anyone is going to confuse A/UX for anything recent, and I don't see any other reason to have this information in the lead. It seems like unnecessary trivia. —151.132.206.26 (talk) 19:26, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

For the record, I disagree. "Implies" doesn't mean "proof", and since Apple has had this and now its current UNIX implementations, I see no harm in mentioning it. Otherwise people might read and think this was their last Unix (was for a long time). We would only save a few bytes for the few people that read this article by skipping.. comp.arch (talk) 08:48, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

If there was anything implying it was their only Unix implementation, sure. Pretty sure there isn't. And it seems too off-topic for the lead; I'd say to put it under § Legacy, except as far as I know it's completely unrelated to Copland and OS X/macOS. It is their only System V system, but that fact isn't even implied here either. —151.132.206.26 (talk) 14:45, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

I’ve added it to § See also, at least. —67.14.236.50 (talk) (same user as above) 05:56, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

I suggest something like "A/UX was Apple's first attempt at developing and marketing a Unix-based operating system to run on its Macintosh line. It was released in 1988 and discontinued in 1995. A/UX is not related to the Unix-based macOS used by Apple computers and mobile devices." MFNickster (talk) 10:59, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

Can we verify that it was their first attempt? Otherwise sounds good to me. —67.14.236.50 (talk) 21:23, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

Can you think of another one? I've never heard of any prior Apple Unix. MFNickster (talk) 00:58, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

Let me rephrase: Is there a reliable source that explicitly describes this as Apple's first attempt at a Unix-based OS? —151.132.206.26 (talk) 17:09, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

How about InfoWorld, "Apple's first foray into the Unix arena..." I'm sure there are more, but I don't see this point being highly contested. It can plainly be described as Apple's first Unix, unless someone points out an earlier attempt which we can document. MFNickster (talk) 22:55, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

This is not controversial at all. I think 67.14.236.50 was just generally nitpicking. Just put it in. In the unlikely event that someone finds reputable sources for an earlier attempt, they can feel free to edit the article accordingly. Toothswung (talk) 04:41, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, I wasn’t contesting it, just wanted to make sure we didn’t call something “the first” of anything and then wind up being wrong. Which is easy to do if the thing has never been identified as “the first.” —67.14.236.50 (talk) 14:49, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Made the edit. Hope it reads well. —67.14.236.50 (talk) 14:59, 19 June 2017 (UTC)