Does NeXTStep 2.0 run on NeXTstation Color?

[andreas_g]

Hello all,

has anyone in here ever tried to run NeXTstep 2.0 (not a later version like 2.1) on a non-Turbo NeXTstation Color? I wonder if that will work. I'm also curious, if ROM Rev. 2.0 v58 or 2.1 v59 works.

If anyone has the machines available to test this, I'd be glad to see the results.

Best wishes,
Andreas

[cuby]

I can give it a try on Friday - finally managed to solder my Blue SCSI...

[cuby]

Ah, stupid me - I missed the "non" in "non-Turbo" in the post, sorry. Both of my color slabs are Turbos, I don't have a regular non-Turbo Color station... (so that's another missing piece here in addition to the Turbo Cube).

[andreas_g]

Unfortunately it needs to be a non-Turbo model. So I hope someone else has the necessary hardware to test this. I'd like to check this before releasing Previous v2.8.

[Rob Blessin Black Hole]

Hello :I think the rare NeXTSTEP 2.2 was the first version to run on Turbo Colors as this is from Mike P. , I think you will enjoy this answer

Rob,

The NEXTSTEP & NEXTSTEP DEVELOPER photo is a shot of (most of) the folks who worked on the 3.1 release:  SW, QA, product marketing, admin, SJ.  The photo was taken between Building 1 and Building 2 at 900 Chesapeake.  If you look at the woman in the front row near the center, you'll see she is holding a box of NS3.1  This photo and a commemorative shrink-wrapped box of NEXTSTEP 3.1 was given to everyone who worked on the 3.1 release.  The box I was given is shown in another of the photos in the album.  The box is still unopened -- I don't believe the copies of 3.1 given out to us differed from what customers could buy.  I never heard any of my NeXT colleagues mention they found a golden ticket or the like in theirs 

Not surprising you haven't seen a CD copy of Release 2.2 -- they weren't terribly common even back in 1991.  NeXTStep 2.2 (iirc all caps for STEP didn't appear until 3.0) was the first (shipped) release that supported Turbo.  As I was the main person doing OS/ROM/driver work for Turbo, I ended up with some of the 2.2 CDs.  I remember there was a great amount of push-back from PM, SJ and others about making Release 2.2 available at all to non-Turbo system owners.  They didn't want to do it.   And so they also didn't want to put out a Release 2.2 CD so people could get it.

Their stance / spin was that the only changes in 2.2 were to support Turbo and that if you had a Turbo, you had 2.2 because it was shipped with it.  I.e. so if you had a Turbo, you already had 2.2 and if you didn't have a Turbo, you didn't need 2.2 so there was no need for a CD version.

The backstory was that what became 2.2 and what became 3.0 forked / branched many months before.  Most everyone in SW was working on the 3.0 branch.  Only two of us were primarily working on the 2.2 branch for Turbo.  Since 3.0 was seen as the next great thing (and it was already behind schedule), the senior team didn't want to make 3.0 even later by having people spend time putting any non-Turbo features or bugfixes in 2.2.  The reality was while PM didn't want non-Turbo changes to go in to 2.2, they also had to calm some customers down and had directed that some important bug fixes get put into 2.2.  I bellieve there also was some ND related updates dragged along.

There were certain customers who, despite not having Turbos, definitely needed some of what was on the 2.2 CD, and who couldn't do updates or rebuilds over the net.  So the result was, grudgingly, a CD of 2.2 was produced, but at the same time there was an effort to convince most folks they really didn't want or need it.

The packaging for the 2.2 CD release also shows how the CD was somewhat under the radar.  First, unlike most NeXT CD releases, the back of the packaging doesn't list a part number.  And the front of the CD packaging is "SOFTWARE RELEASE 2.2" under a NeXT logo with no mention of NeXTStep.  Or NeXTSTEP.   We thought back then, probably correctly, that the likely reason they left off the word NeXTStep or NeXTSTEP is that it would takes them weeks to decide which capitalization to choose.

-M

[andreas_g]

Hello Rob, thank you for the story, but my question is about 2.0 on non-Turbo Color Slabs. So this is not exactly the information I am looking for.

[cuby]

Some info from the net that might be useful:

• The NeXTstation Color was introduced in September 1990
• Le 18 septembre 1990, Steve Jobs fait un nouveau show pour présenter les nouvelles machines et le nouveau système NeXTSTEP 2.0.

The NeXTdimension was also introduced in September 1990, so it makes sense to assume that 2.0 was the version to introduce color for Cubes and Stations. Strangely, the release notes for 2.0 don't mention color at all. I couldn't find the 2.1 release notes online.

According to Éric Lévénez' site, NeXTSTEP 2.1 was introduced half a year later, on March 25th, 1991 - that would be too late for the initial release Color stations.

However, things are not that clear. An article on p. 21 of NeXTWorld also mentions the NeXTstation color and NeXTSTEP 2.0. But the table on p. 21 mentions that the Color station (and Dimension) were provided with NeXTSTEP 2.1. But this issue was printed almost a year later, in Fall 1991.

As confirmed by Mike P.'s mail quoted by Rob and also given by Éric, 2.2 was the update to support the Turbo machines.

[cuby]

Kernel versions could be another indication that 2.0 supports Color stations.

NS2.0 uses mk-108.1, whereas NS2.1 uses a slightly later version, mk-108.14 (confirmed by extracting the respective file system images and applying strings to the sdmach kernels).

Since we have a copy of the mk-108.1 sources, we can check for Color support. The Color station's codename is WARP9C (see the codename list at netbsd.org), the code contains conditionally compiled sections for NeXT_WARP9C and has this comment in one of the files:

* 12-Sep-90  Mike Paquette (mpaque) at NeXT
*      Updated to reflect final Warp 9C hardware defs.

Six days before the presentation by Steve Jobs mentioned in my post above. These must have been some stressful weeks at NeXT...

[verdraith]

Yes, mk-108.1 has support for warp9c in NeXT_init, but won't boot on a non-turbo color slab in Previous.
It will boot on a non-turbo mono slab, however.

We're trying to figure out if this is a bug in Previous, or a bug in NEXTSTEP 2.0's kernel

I'm leaning towards the later, but ideally we'd want to see how mk-108.1 handles the real thing to be sure.

--edit--
Also can't rule out a bug in the ROM.  If we had 2.1's kernel source, we'd instantly be able to tell if that was the case, though does nbsd special-case anything re warp9c or ROM versions?

[cuby]

I'm also curious, if ROM Rev. 2.0 v58 or 2.1 v59 works

I think the 2.0 and 2.1 ROMs were intended for mono stations only - according to previous, both try to write to 0x0b00_0000, which is the location of the mono framebuffer, and crash. Versions 2.4 and 2.5 work for me.

[cuby]

We're trying to figure out if this is a bug in Previous, or a bug in NEXTSTEP 2.0's kernel

I'm leaning towards the later, but ideally we'd want to see how mk-108.1 handles the real thing to be sure.

I see... now someone here should have a non-Turbo color station? Rob seems to have two machines available in the blackhole online store, but I'm not exactly planning to spend $499 + shipping and customs fees for yet another NeXT .

[andreas_g]

I think the 2.0 and 2.1 ROMs were intended for mono stations only - according to previous, both try to write to 0x0b00_0000, which is the location of the mono framebuffer, and crash. Versions 2.4 and 2.5 work for me.

That is a similar problem as we have with the 2.0 kernel. It seems to think that it is running on something else. The problem seems to have its roots at bad system type detection. Within Previous the 2.0 ROM shows a Cube logo when booting a monochrome NeXTstation, because it thinks it is running on a NeXTcube. Luckily NeXTstation and NeXTcube share the same memory layout and therefore it works. NeXTstation Color has a different memory layout.

If nobody has a machine to test this, someone with 68k assembly skills could disassemble the ROMs and kernels and check if there is a bug in the machine type detection.

[Rob Blessin Black Hole]

I found the answer in NeXTworld Magazine Plunging into Color Edition on page 19 references NeXT 2.0 scroll to page 220 on the PDF or lower right corner SIMSON00000674 https://www.nextcomputers.org/NeXTfiles/Articles/NeXTWORLD/NeXTWORLD_1991.pdf  actually a really good article ! Also I did not know the I 860 Risc Processor on the NeXT Dimension runs at 33Mhz

[andreas_g]

Well, on page 220 they say 2.0 and on the next page, where they compare systems, they say 2.1. I can't find the exact reason, but 2.0 just refuses to recognise the NeXTstation Color in Previous. 2.0 also does not like the NeXTdimension - the driver is not even present. Everything works just fine with 2.1.

[mikeboss]

the release notes from NeXTSTEP 2.0



here on the other hand
https://www.levenez.com/NeXTSTEP/NeXTstation.html
the author specifically links to release 2.1
https://www.levenez.com/NeXTSTEP/Logiciels.html#NeXTSTEP21