WANTED: images of old system releases

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Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: mikeboss on March 29, 2014, 10:57:37 AM
over the past few days I've been busy creating fresh images of all NeXT operating system releases I could find in my collection. to create as small as possible files I erased the CF cards by overwriting them with zeroes before installing the system. these are all fresh installs, done on black hardware. the images have never been booted after the installation process has finished. they have been created by either using BuildDisk or by using original install media where available. no patches (if available) have been applied.

if anybody is willing to host these files I'll be happy to share (if there aren't any concerns about legal issues...).

here's the list of the images I created and also the releases I'm still missing:

NS 0.8 MISSING
NS 0.8a MISSING
NS 0.9 1.0GB (ZIP 64MB)
NS 1.0 MISSING
NS 1.0a 1.0GB (ZIP 66MB)
NS 2.0 MISSING
NS 2.1 2.0GB (ZIP 88MB)
NS 2.1a MISSING
NS 2.2 2.0GB (ZIP 30MB)
NS 3.0 2.0GB (ZIP 30MB)
NS 3.1 2.0GB (ZIP 44MB)
NS 3.2 2.0GB (ZIP 45MB)
NS 3.3 2.0GB (ZIP 86MB)
OS 4.0 2.0GB (ZIP 94MB)
OS 4.2 2.0GB (ZIP 94MB)


regards,
michael
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: gtnicol on March 29, 2014, 04:10:45 PM
I will provide the missing images as soon as I get a chance.
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: wizard on March 29, 2014, 09:46:42 PM
You can host on my server I sent you last month
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: mikeboss on March 30, 2014, 02:31:28 AM
adam,

thanks for the offer. would the images be available for anybody interested in them?
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: mikeboss on March 30, 2014, 07:15:59 AM
UPDATE: NeXTSTEP 2.0 done!

NS 0.8 MISSING
NS 0.8a MISSING
NS 0.9 1.0GB (ZIP 64MB)
NS 1.0 got an image, might be completed in the near future
NS 1.0a 1.0GB (ZIP 66MB)
NS 2.0 2.0GB (ZIP 76MB)
NS 2.1 2.0GB (ZIP 88MB)
NS 2.1a MISSING
NS 2.2 2.0GB (ZIP 30MB)
NS 3.0 2.0GB (ZIP 30MB)
NS 3.1 2.0GB (ZIP 44MB)
NS 3.2 2.0GB (ZIP 45MB)
NS 3.3 2.0GB (ZIP 86MB)
NS 4.0 got an image, might be completed in the near future
OS 4.0 2.0GB (ZIP 94MB)
OS 4.2 2.0GB (ZIP 94MB)



_
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: mikeboss on March 30, 2014, 12:30:41 PM
UPDATE: NeXTSTEP 1.0 done!

NS 0.8 MISSING
NS 0.8a MISSING
NS 0.9 1.0GB (ZIP 64MB)
NS 1.0 1.0GB (ZIP 67MB)
NS 1.0a 1.0GB (ZIP 66MB)
NS 2.0 2.0GB (ZIP 76MB)
NS 2.1 2.0GB (ZIP 88MB)
NS 2.1a MISSING
NS 2.2 2.0GB (ZIP 30MB)
NS 3.0 2.0GB (ZIP 30MB)
NS 3.1 2.0GB (ZIP 44MB)
NS 3.2 2.0GB (ZIP 45MB)
NS 3.3 2.0GB (ZIP 86MB)
MECCA got an image, might be completed in the near future
OS 4.0 2.0GB (ZIP 94MB)
OS 4.2 2.0GB (ZIP 94MB)
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: Mominul on March 30, 2014, 01:08:46 PM
Here is the Next Step 0.9 it in in dump format hope it helps http://wdl2.winworldpc.com/Abandonware%20Operating%20Systems/Misc/NeXT%20NeXTSTEP%200.9%20%5b68k%5d.7z
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: Rob Blessin Black Hole on March 31, 2014, 05:37:30 AM
Hello Mike: I can also host them on black hole and make them easily downloadable , I would put them in the shopping cart section which would be accessable to everyone for a nominal fee like $1.00, this would cover the added expense of server space. I have ISO's available as well of Openstep 4.2 and NeXTSTEP 3.3 and have those working with permission from Apple Legal . For forum members I can offer support as well , if the $1 is a deal breaker , you can always email me and I can send you a secret squirrel link that is time controlled .... so how exactly does one unzip uncompress and install version 1.0 or any versions up to 2.2 on to a hard drive on an 030 or later cube ? As early versions didn't use cdrom but optical disk and 1.0 builddisk only goes optical to optical .... can you create an early iso or cdr bootable version , then what command do you issue to start the install or is it DD . Best regards Rob Blessin  :wink: http://www.blackholeinc.com/store/
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: mikeboss on March 31, 2014, 07:03:01 AM
hi rob!

I don't mind if you'll take USD 1.00 per download. but, if anybody is willing to host the files for free, they will become available there too.

these are zipped dd-images. you could restore them on black hardware but I think it is easier to do it on a Mac or Linux box. BTW: 1.0 and 0.9 will install to a harddrive using BuildDisk. of course one has to create a suitable disktab first (this is what I did) so the HDD will be recognized by the installer.

the images also work with the NeXT emulator previous.

regards,
michael
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: mikeboss on April 14, 2014, 11:29:13 AM
hello NeXT community!

we have been able to confirm the compatibility of almost every release of NeXTSTEP with the NeXT emulator Previous. what we're still missing is NeXTSTEP Release 0.8 or 0.8a. please contact me or andreas_g if you have a working copy. some releases have "special needs" (like we have seen with Release 2.0 which refused to boot). now that 2.0 is running, we would like to check if 0.8 works in Previous or not... thank you!


regards,
michael
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: gtnicol on April 14, 2014, 01:42:31 PM
I will get a copy of 0.8 as soon as I can...
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: jroark on April 14, 2014, 01:49:45 PM
have you found hosting for these images? what's the legality?
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: protocol7 on April 15, 2014, 09:23:39 AM
Strange, I never had any trouble booting 2.0.

So is 3.1 working OK now?
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: mikeboss on April 15, 2014, 10:31:16 AM
@gtnicol: thank you in advance!

@jroark: the images are still not hosted anywhere. I don't know for sure if it would be legal or not...

@protocol7: there was an issue with 2.0 (I was in contact with andreas about the issue). and it has been solved.

I totally forgot about the issue with 3.1. tested it a few minutes ago and the hang on root is till there. funny thing is: 3.1 works if I choose NeXTstation as emulated system...
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: andreas_g on April 15, 2014, 12:18:49 PM
Quote from: "protocol7"Strange, I never had any trouble booting 2.0.

So is 3.1 working OK now?

The problem with 2.0 only occurred when emulating 68040 based systems. It was FPU related and is fixed now.
I remember there was a problem with fonts not being shown in a later release. That might be solved too.

All other problems (like the "root on" hang) are not addressed by the latest changes. They are not CPU related. Most of them might be timing problems.
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: protocol7 on April 15, 2014, 12:21:54 PM
That makes sense. I would have been using the 030 emulation back then as 040 was still broken.

Good to hear that the 040 side is getting more fixes :)
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: balrog on May 25, 2014, 10:17:35 PM
I'd really like to get a hold of all these images!

Why not host on the Internet Archive? They are very happy to have this stuff and it generally stays up unless they receive a takedown request, which is very unlikely here. The upload page is at https://archive.org/upload .
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: mikeboss on May 26, 2014, 02:12:31 AM
it looks like somebody has uploaded the whole collection to MEGA:

https://mega.co.nz/#!h0IRgRLT!WiceqJA2LIhPbWJZvR6CmJstPZwOdZrun8gYo1e-Row

using Google Chrome to download is highly recommended...
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: gaspar on May 26, 2014, 08:50:05 PM
Got it!!  

I didn't know there was a NS version 4.0

I do have a bunch of beta and interim versions with one_off patches..  (I'll upload when I have all the gear in one place)

thanks for the tip  :D  

Last time I remember people were still bitchin' about not paying for the OS, etc.. I guess things have changed (for better in this case)


Not sure what to do from now if I wanted to boot off another drive.. (my Unix skills are very-very dusty. Downside from pushing paper all day).

-Gaspar
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: Mominul on May 26, 2014, 11:16:20 PM
@mikeboss you can donate the images to WinWorld (http://winworldpc.com/).
QuoteWinWorld is an online museum dedicated to the preservation and sharing of abandonware and pre-release software, as well as any and all knowledge associated with such works
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: SomeGuy on June 08, 2014, 07:56:55 PM
Is that NS 4 the NeXTStep 4.0 beta?

When I try to boot it, it asks for a User ID and password. What is it set to? "me" doesn't work.

Any chance of someone posting the original installation media for each? (I did find the NS 2.2, 3.2, and 3.0 images)
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: NeXTnewbe on June 10, 2014, 04:17:20 PM
Quote from: "SomeGuy"Is that NS 4 the NeXTStep 4.0 beta?

When I try to boot it, it asks for a User ID and password. What is it set to? "me" doesn't work.

Any chance of someone posting the original installation media for each? (I did find the NS 2.2, 3.2, and 3.0 images)

when I installed my NS 4.0 beta, the current usres were kept, so try to login with your normal account

if doesnt work, try ot find the way to reset the password (in this forum)

good luck
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: SomeGuy on June 17, 2014, 01:59:44 AM
What "normal account"?

I tried to reset the password as per the instruction on the forum, but the passwd command tells me that the users "root" and "me" do not exists.
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: mikeboss on January 23, 2015, 06:30:07 AM
somebody posted bundles with the OS images I created and Previous (Windows version) on the WinWorld site. each release can be downloaded separately ->

http://t.co/z8FhsaeMd1
Title: Re: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: tomaz on January 26, 2015, 05:58:56 PM
Quote from: "mikeboss"over the past few days I've been busy creating fresh images of all NeXT operating system releases I could find in my collection. to create as small as possible files I erased the CF cards by overwriting them with zeroes before installing the system. these are all fresh installs, done on black hardware. the images have never been booted after the installation process has finished. they have been created by either using BuildDisk or by using original install media where available.

Do you have sector dumps of original pre-3.0 OD media in pristine form - never written to?
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: mikeboss on January 27, 2015, 03:51:18 AM
I'm pretty sure that the image of 1.0a posted by gtnicol was one that only was booted during creation at the factory ->

http://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2642&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=235
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: gtnicol on January 27, 2015, 09:59:14 AM
I think I might have a clean 0.8 too... let me look.
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: tomaz on January 28, 2015, 05:38:18 AM
Quote from: "mikeboss"I'm pretty sure that the image of 1.0a posted by gtnicol was one that only was booted during creation at the factory ->

http://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2642&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=235
Are those images still available somewhere - I can't seem to access them in the DropBox?
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: mikeboss on January 28, 2015, 05:45:18 AM
I still have the images and I just uploaded them to my webserver. I'll send you an e-mail with the link in a few minutes. here's the procedure I used to restore the image to an MO:

http://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2642&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=248


EDIT: according to my e-mail history you already got the images on may 14th in 2014..????
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: rcberwick on December 22, 2015, 05:56:38 PM
Hi mikeboss,

do you mind saying how you dd'd the full images?
How did you capture the boot blocks?

I tried doing just a straight dd of /dev/sd0a, and this didn't
work for me (obviously - can't w/o boot blks...)
The size looks just a tad bit shorter compared to the 2.01G for your images.

Thanks for any tips.

Quote from: "mikeboss"UPDATE: NeXTSTEP 2.0 done!


NS 3.3 2.0GB (ZIP 86MB)
NS 4.0 got an image, might be completed in the near future
OS 4.0 2.0GB (ZIP 94MB)
OS 4.2 2.0GB (ZIP 94MB)



_
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: mikeboss on December 23, 2015, 01:53:21 AM
on Apple OS X:

dd if=/dev/imagefile.dd of=/dev/rdiskX
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: rcberwick on December 23, 2015, 05:20:25 AM
Thanks.  Writing out the image on the Mac works -- it is creating the image file in the first place that has me stumped. I used dd on a NeXT turboslab, e.g. dd if=/dev/rsd0a of=image.dd.
But when this image is restored as per below onto an SD card used in conjunction with SD2SCI, I don't get a bootable image back.

But: I do get a bootable image when I use your image files.
So you are doing something right that I am doing wrong.
Perhaps one has to write out the whole disk via dd somehow - that is my guess, since sd0a is just 1 partition.  
I would wager that you know how to do this.

A quick 2nd q: are those HD posted image snapshots, e.g. the 2.01G one that comes w/ Previous done from a cube NS OS or a turbo slab NS OS?
I guess a cube, since that is what seems to boot on the SD card when it's restored.

Thanks for your help!

Quote from: "mikeboss"on Apple OS X:

dd if=/dev/imagefile.dd of=/dev/rdiskX
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: mikeboss on December 23, 2015, 08:20:44 AM
all images were created using a linux box before first boot after the installer of openstep/nextstep was completed.

I was using a cube but this doesn't matter at all. AFAIK there's no difference if the operating systems have been installed on a slab or a cube.

regards,
michael
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: rcberwick on December 23, 2015, 08:46:32 AM
Thanks.  That resolves some of my problems...but I'm not sure I understand it all.  Is this the sequence?  

1. Install NS on cube, say the disk partition at /dev/sd0a
2. [??] dd if=/dev/sd0a  of=image.dd  or some other if?

It's step 2 that I'm stuck on. Where was the dd cmd run to dump the image of the installed OS? On the cube, I assumed.  

Re equivalence, I run into apparent device differences between cube and turbo setups.   E.g., difft devices, like the optical drive are on the cube setup, but not the turbo.  Trying to mount /dev/sd2 calls for insertion of an optical disk, the msg "Insert....".  If you have some tip about how to mount any other scsi disk besides the boot disk (and they are recognized in the scsi chain at boot time), this would be helpful to know how to do.  Thanks!

Quote from: "mikeboss"all images were created using a linux box before first boot after the installer of openstep/nextstep was completed.

I was using a cube but this doesn't matter at all. AFAIK there's no difference if the operating systems have been installed on a slab or a cube.

regards,
michael
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: mikeboss on December 23, 2015, 09:46:54 AM
1) install OS on cube
2) took the disk out of the cube
3) connected the harddrive to a linux box
4) ran the dd command (dump the device, NOT only a volume).
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: rcberwick on December 23, 2015, 11:08:22 AM
Thanks...that answers the q. Looks like I'll need an Adaptec scsi adapter for a linux box...

Quote from: "mikeboss"1) install OS on cube
2) took the disk out of the cube
3) connected the harddrive to a linux box
4) ran the dd command (dump the device, NOT only a volume).
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: praetor242 on September 16, 2016, 03:40:40 PM
I'm acquiring a Color NeXTstation, and plan on getting an scsi2sd card for it, so I'm curious if the images you have for Openstep/Nextstep will work for that purpose and how do I go about acquiring them  :D
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: bobo68 on September 17, 2016, 09:52:49 AM
Quote from: "praetor242"I'm acquiring a Color NeXTstation, and plan on getting an scsi2sd card for it, so I'm curious if the images you have for Openstep/Nextstep will work for that purpose and how do I go about acquiring them  :D

Should work. Have a look at this thread: http://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3737&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

You should probably set the "geometry" of the SCSI2SD the NeXT-way.
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: paolo.bertolo on September 18, 2016, 02:21:01 PM
Hi All,

I must confess I'm lost and - again - need your help here...

I'm trying to recreate a MO disk for my Cube 030 with the "famous" NeXTStep1.0a release.
I thought it would be fun to do that on a rainy, lazy afternoon, but in reality it's turning into a little "nightmare".

What I have is, of course, a working Cube 030 with MO drive and a Station which I can connect to the internet (i.e. I can transfer files back and forth using FTP). A SCSI drive in the form of a SCSI2SD device.
In case I have a Mac. No Linux boxes, no Windows boxes whatsoever.

I've found some disk images around, the most "promising" one is a ".dd" file named "NS10a_1GB_V4.dd", which is claimed here to be functioning, complete and probably cloned from a factory golden master.
But it's a 69.7 MB 7z file which becomes a whopping 967.6 MB once deflated, I guess it would never fit on a MO disk, right? So I've tried to restore it to a 2GB (or 1 GB as well, for what it matters) partition on a SCSI2SD drive. Idea was that in the end I would have booted the cube from that partition and eventually built a MO start up disk.
Final result is a disk that cannot be even read or mounted, I assume there's some kind of low level mismatch between the data in the archive and the destination disk.

Some other images I've tried are "disk dump" (extension ".dump") files, which I could restore. Final result was a disk with something on it, but I could not launch any of the programs because executables seem to be "damaged".

There are some other images around which I can't use (or can I?) since are built for the emulator "Previous".

Any advice on how to get the job done?

Thanks in advance and looking forward to your feedback!
Title: re-creating MO disc from dd image
Post by: rcberwick on September 18, 2016, 03:01:48 PM
For starters, it would help to know:
1. What settings you used for the scsi2sd drive to write out the dd file: you might want to post the xml file that it uses, which you can write out
2. What sequence of terminal commands you used on the Mac to write to the sd card
3. After you place the scsi2sd card in the NeXT 030 and boot, the boot messages - does it boot all the way to the login screen?
I confess I have never tried that image, so it might be that it was a disk copy that did not include the boot blocks - or it might be flawed in some other way, as you say.  
Was the plan to use the scsi2sd to init the MO and put the NeXT OS on it? I again confess I've never had the opportunity to experiment w/ an MO drive, so others here more knowledgeable would know what the right sequence of steps here would be.  

Quote from: "paolo.bertolo"Hi All,

I must confess I'm lost and - again - need your help here...

I'm trying to recreate a MO disk for my Cube 030 with the "famous" NeXTStep1.0a release.
I thought it would be fun to do that on a rainy, lazy afternoon, but in reality it's turning into a little "nightmare".

What I have is, of course, a working Cube 030 with MO drive and a Station which I can connect to the internet (i.e. I can transfer files back and forth using FTP). A SCSI drive in the form of a SCSI2SD device.
In case I have a Mac. No Linux boxes, no Windows boxes whatsoever.

I've found some disk images around, the most "promising" one is a ".dd" file named "NS10a_1GB_V4.dd", which is claimed here to be functioning, complete and probably cloned from a factory golden master.
But it's a 69.7 MB 7z file which becomes a whopping 967.6 MB once deflated, I guess it would never fit on a MO disk, right? So I've tried to restore it to a 2GB (or 1 GB as well, for what it matters) partition on a SCSI2SD drive. Idea was that in the end I would have booted the cube from that partition and eventually built a MO start up disk.
Final result is a disk that cannot be even read or mounted, I assume there's some kind of low level mismatch between the data in the archive and the destination disk.

Some other images I've tried are "disk dump" (extension ".dump") files, which I could restore. Final result was a disk with something on it, but I could not launch any of the programs because executables seem to be "damaged".

There are some other images around which I can't use (or can I?) since are built for the emulator "Previous".

Any advice on how to get the job done?

Thanks in advance and looking forward to your feedback!
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: paolo.bertolo on September 18, 2016, 03:30:42 PM
Hello,

here's an extract from the xml, for the other devices everything is repeating accordingly.
It works just fine.

Once the dd recovery is over (1.5 hrs later, closing message is showing that data has moved from if to of), the targeted disk cannot be mounted / read any longer.

The Console log is warning about BAD BLOCK, WRONG MAGIC NUMBER and stuff, that's why I suspect it can be something related to low level stuff...

Paolo

Quote<SCSI2SD>
<BoardConfig>
   <unitAttention>false</unitAttention>
   <parity>false</parity>
   <!-- ********************************************************
   Only set to true when using with a fast SCSI2 host
   controller. This can cause problems with older/slower
   hardware.
   ********************************************************* -->
   <enableScsi2>false</enableScsi2>
   <!-- ********************************************************
   Setting to 'true' will result in increased performance at the
   cost of lower noise immunity.
   Only set to true when using short cables with only 1 or two
   devices. This should remain off when using external SCSI1 DB25
   cables.
   ********************************************************* -->
   <disableGlitchFilter>false</disableGlitchFilter>
   <enableCache>false</enableCache>
   <enableDisconnect>false</enableDisconnect>
   <!-- ********************************************************
   Respond to very short duration selection attempts. This supports
   non-standard hardware, but is generally safe to enable.
   Required for Philips P2000C.
   ********************************************************* -->
   <selLatch>false</selLatch>
   <!-- ********************************************************
   Convert luns to IDs. The unit must already be configured to respond
   on the ID. Allows dual drives to be accessed from a
   XEBEC S1410 SASI bridge.
   eg. Configured for dual drives as IDs 0 and 1, but the XEBEC will
   access the second disk as ID0, lun 1.
   See ttp://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/xebec/104524C_S1410Man_Aug83.pdf
   ********************************************************* -->
   <mapLunsToIds>false</mapLunsToIds>
</BoardConfig>
<SCSITarget id="1">
   <enabled>true</enabled>

   <!-- ********************************************************
   Space separated list. Available options:
   apple      Returns Apple-specific mode pages
   ********************************************************* -->
   <quirks></quirks>


   <!-- ********************************************************
   0x0    Fixed hard drive.
   0x1    Removable drive.
   0x2    Optical drive  (ie. CD drive).
   0x3    1.44MB Floppy Drive.
   ********************************************************* -->
   <deviceType>0x0</deviceType>


   <!-- ********************************************************
   Device type modifier is usually 0x00. Only change this if your
   OS requires some special value.

   0x4C    Data General Micropolis disk
   ********************************************************* -->
   <deviceTypeModifier>0x0</deviceTypeModifier>


   <!-- ********************************************************
   SD card offset, as a sector number (always 512 bytes).
   ********************************************************* -->
   <sdSectorStart>0</sdSectorStart>


   <!-- ********************************************************
   Drive geometry settings.
   ********************************************************* -->

   <scsiSectors>4194304</scsiSectors>
   <bytesPerSector>512</bytesPerSector>
   <sectorsPerTrack>139</sectorsPerTrack>
   <headsPerCylinder>4</headsPerCylinder>


   <!-- ********************************************************
   Drive identification information. The SCSI2SD doesn't
   care what these are set to. Use these strings to trick a OS
   thinking a specific hard drive model is attached.
   ********************************************************* -->

   <!-- 8 character vendor string -->
   <!-- For Apple HD SC Setup/Drive Setup, use ' SEAGATE' -->
   <vendor>SEAGATE </vendor>

   <!-- 16 character produce identifier -->
   <!-- For Apple HD SC Setup/Drive Setup, use '          ST225N' -->
   <prodId>ST1255ND        </prodId>

   <!-- 4 character product revision number -->
   <!-- For Apple HD SC Setup/Drive Setup, use '1.0 ' -->
   <revision>0009</revision>

   <!-- 16 character serial number -->
   <serial>ML64203MF6QLC   </serial>

   <!-- Custom mode pages, base64 encoded, up to 1024 bytes.-->
   <modePages>

   </modePages>

   <!-- Custom inquiry VPD pages, base64 encoded, up to 1024 bytes.-->
   <vpd>

   </vpd>
</SCSITarget>
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: rcberwick on September 18, 2016, 04:13:28 PM
Paolo,
What was your goal? To get a working MO drive, right?
Yes, the bad magic number and such suggests that the dd doesn't have the boot loader at the front, or some other issue, so possibly it wasn't copied verbatim off of a working MO drive in full.  The boot blocks are missing.
At the risk of speculation, since I've never initialized an MO, let alone for booting, what about the following alternative plan:

1. Get the 030 system running on the scsi2sd from a known working dd (lots of them out there)
2. Use that to build a bootable nextstep filesystem on the MO drive using the NeXT OS tools; I believe it will know enough about the MO geometry to set that up correctly to initialize it.
But I may have misunderstood what the goals are.
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: bobo68 on September 19, 2016, 02:46:40 PM
You should be able to use the "with Previous" archives. AFAIK they contain a regular disk image and the emulator etc.

Here you can find a NS 0.9 MO disk image: http://vetusware.com/download/NeXTSTEP%200.9/?id=10217. You should be able to dd it onto the MO on the Cube.

HTH
bobo68
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: paolo.bertolo on September 19, 2016, 03:58:20 PM
Quote from: "bobo68"You should be able to use the "with Previous" archives. AFAIK they contain a regular disk image and the emulator etc.
Quote from: "rcberwick"1. Get the 030 system running on the scsi2sd from a known working dd (lots of them out there)

First of all, thanks for the feedback.

@bobo68: you right, 7z archives "with Previous" come with the binary dump. Will try again over the next week-end to restore one of them.

@rcberwick/bobo68: problem is that so far what I could restore seems to be broken at some level, since binary data is there but, for example, applications are displayed with a generic icon with a question mark on it and when I try to launch them they either output "Cannot exec ... (not a valid program)" or "Bad executable".

I can only try restoring "dd" or "dump" archives to a SCSI2SD drive, since dd files are in any case quite big and I don't have a compatible SCSI drive at hand.
Could it be that there's some kind of mismatch between the format of the source disk  and the virtual partition on the SCSI2SD device?
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: rcberwick on September 19, 2016, 04:11:13 PM
I would agree with bobo68, a binary archive might be the best shot.

I don't have a perfectly clear picture of what point you are starting from - perhaps you can clarify that. "Cannot exec" often implies that the binary was compiled on different hardware (perhaps Sparc, so non-Motorola 030/040).

With the scsi2sd card, you now have a scsi drive, of course - the one on the card....  I was assuming you were going to put the MO drive on the same scsi chain somewhere and build the MO drive from scratch that way. But again, I could be wrong about what you're trying to do.

@bobo68: you right, 7z archives "with Previous" come with the binary dump. Will try again over the next week-end to restore one of them.

@rcberwick/bobo68: problem is that so far what I could restore seems to be broken at some level, since binary data is there but, for example, applications are displayed with a generic icon with a question mark on it and when I try to launch them they either output "Cannot exec ... (not a valid program)" or "Bad executable".

I can only try restoring "dd" or "dump" archives to a SCSI2SD drive, since dd files are in any case quite big and I don't have a compatible SCSI drive at hand.
Could it be that there's some kind of mismatch between the format of the source disk  and the virtual partition on the SCSI2SD device?[/quote]
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: bobo68 on September 19, 2016, 04:43:56 PM
Quote from: "paolo.bertolo"@rcberwick/bobo68: problem is that so far what I could restore seems to be broken at some level, since binary data is there but, for example, applications are displayed with a generic icon with a question mark on it and when I try to launch them they either output "Cannot exec ... (not a valid program)" or "Bad executable".

I had this once with the "Configure" application. It is an Intel binary which would not run on 68k of course. The drive / image itself is obviously ok otherweise the data would be so scrambled that you could not boot from it or see files.

Does this happen on the 030 Cube?

Quote from: "paolo.bertolo"Could it be that there's some kind of mismatch between the format of the source disk  and the virtual partition on the SCSI2SD device?

The format of the source does not really matter. A dd file is just a file with blocks from a drive. Also the virtual partition (I guess you mean the SCSI devices that SCSI2SD emulates!?) does not really matter because when you put the sd card in your Mac it is just a device with blocks. That said you can of course easily write across SCSI device boundaries with your Mac because they only exist in SCSI2SD's config.
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: paolo.bertolo on September 21, 2016, 04:14:51 PM
Quote from: "bobo68"I had this once with the "Configure" application. It is an Intel binary which would not run on 68k of course. The drive / image itself is obviously ok otherweise the data would be so scrambled that you could not boot from it or see files.

Does this happen on the 030 Cube?

I don't think it's an intel binary, at the time of version 1.0 everything was for 68k only. For example, I'm sure version 1.0 of Mathematica is a 68k binary.

I have the feeling that something gets messed up in the process of archiving, moving, expanding and restoring across different file systems.
In the past I've seen 7z / tar archives being quite critical, since I had to deflate them on my Mac before moving to the NeXT... e.g. if I expand the 7z archive, untar it on my Mac and then move it to the NeXT, I have basically the same issue: binary data is there but cannot be executed. When I just unzip and move the tar file to the NeXT and untar it locally, everything is OK...
Is there any 7z utility for NeXTStep?
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: bobo68 on September 22, 2016, 12:26:33 PM
But we are not handling archives of single files here. We have a binary image of a whole drive. No tar involved. And compression tools should not alter the binary image file.

Under which configuration do you try to start the applications? On the 030 Cube with ROM ??? and NS ???.
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: rcberwick on September 22, 2016, 12:47:59 PM
He's absolutely correct.  As he said better than I did in the previous post, you have to use a method that copies disk blocks, exactly.  i.e., dd.
Tar and other archive methods won't work here.  Neither will dump/restore. That is used to restore once you have a NeXTstep formatted partition to restore to; if it's to be bootable, it has to have the boot blocks already in place and these aren't part of the dump/restore.

Once you have a single image file produced by dd you can, of course, compress it using e.g., gzip.  But that is something else.  There are lots of these around.  That one the way I've archived my running systems.
You can even use dd along with ssh to dd a bootable partition from a NeXT machine to a Mac or Linux or PC; that is one way to make the dd images in the first place.

Quote from: "bobo68"But we are not handling archives of single files here. We have a binary image of a whole drive. No tar involved. And compression tools should not alter the binary image file.

Under which configuration do you try to start the applications? On the 030 Cube with ROM ??? and NS ???.
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: paolo.bertolo on September 24, 2016, 05:01:03 PM
Quote from: "bobo68"But we are not handling archives of single files here. We have a binary image of a whole drive. No tar involved. And compression tools should not alter the binary image file.

Under which configuration do you try to start the applications? On the 030 Cube with ROM ??? and NS ???.

Quote from: "rcberwick"He's absolutely correct. As he said better than I did in the previous post, you have to use a method that copies disk blocks, exactly. i.e., dd.

So, here's what I'm trying to do. Unsuccessfully, so far.

- Downloaded the file "NS10a_1GB_V4_incl_Business-Land_Demos.dd.zip", linked many times in this forum and available out there...

- moved via FTP to my NeXT Station mono; the machine is equipped with NeXTStep 3.3 and is equipped with a SCSI2SD with 8 Gb SD card split into 4 drives, each of them 2 Gb

- expanded locally using NeXTStep utility "Opener", which can handle zip files; eventually, I got a file ending with "dd" extension

- initialize the targeted partition with "disk -i /dev/rsd2a"

- unmounted the partition "umount /dev/sd2a"

- write the dd file to the partition using "dd if=... of=/dev/rsd2a"

- wait 2+ hrs, dd process goes all the way to the end with zero errors

- reboot: fail, the disk is "damaged", and cannot be mounted; fsck is reading about BAD SUPER BLOCK: MAGIC NUMBER WRONG and stuff...

I suspect the binary data written by dd is not consistent with the initialisation scheme and this is messing everything up...

Any advise?
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: rcberwick on September 24, 2016, 06:52:20 PM
This is very helpful because these are close to all the required steps...but...
I agree with you: you don't want to do the disk initialization using the NeXTOS-- because in all likelihood it conflicts with the simulated 'disk geometry' and partitioning scheme already set up by the scsi2sd xml file OR else the dd image you have was set up for a drive geometry that doesn't match up. When you use the NeXT command "disk -i ...." it makes assumptions using /etc/disktab, plus guessing.  Not clear what it will do, but it does not seem to work.

If you have a Mac or a linux box at hand, then I would suggest doing everything on that first, using dd there to write out the block by block copy to the sd card, and then simply moving the resulting sd card to the scsi2sd adaptor.  I have done this with dozens of 030 and 040 machines, without any difficulties.

The steps would be nearly exactly as you have (correctly) done them, though with a few differences because you would be operating on the Mac or linux box and writing to the sd card there:

1. unzip the *.dd.zip file   [much, much faster than on the NeXT.... let's say this is "nextimage.dd"]
2. insert an SD card, and then, if it's mounted automatically, unmount it [on a Mac --]
 (i) diskutil list    [to get the list of devices and find out which one corresponds to the sd card.  Say it's disk4]
 (ii) sudo diskutil unmountDisk disk4  
3. sudo dd if=nextimage.dd of=/dev/rdisk4 bs=1m  
4. sudo diskutil unmountDisk disk4  [on a Mac]
5. Remove the sd card and put it into the scsi2sd adaptor, try to boot.

Basically the same steps on a linux box.
You of course want to be very careful to make sure you have the right disk number when you start the dd so that you do not blow away your local machine's drive...

xml files with suitable geometries have been posted on the forum. FWIW, if you are doing four 2gb partitions, you need > 8gb card, to accommodate.
I have not done this for an MO drive image, however, and I'm not sure how that would match up.

The above is what has worked for me - hope this is of some help.  Post your xml file in full - I can repost one I use for 4 x 2gb partitions (eventually written to a 16gb sd card)

Quote from: "paolo.bertolo"
So, here's what I'm trying to do. Unsuccessfully, so far.

- Downloaded the file "NS10a_1GB_V4_incl_Business-Land_Demos.dd.zip", linked many times in this forum and available out there...

- moved via FTP to my NeXT Station mono; the machine is equipped with NeXTStep 3.3 and is equipped with a SCSI2SD with 8 Gb SD card split into 4 drives, each of them 2 Gb

- expanded locally using NeXTStep utility "Opener", which can handle zip files; eventually, I got a file ending with "dd" extension

- initialize the targeted partition with "disk -i /dev/rsd2a"

- unmounted the partition "umount /dev/sd2a"

- write the dd file to the partition using "dd if=... of=/dev/rsd2a"

- wait 2+ hrs, dd process goes all the way to the end with zero errors

- reboot: fail, the disk is "damaged", and cannot be mounted; fsck is reading about BAD SUPER BLOCK: MAGIC NUMBER WRONG and stuff...

I suspect the binary data written by dd is not consistent with the initialisation scheme and this is messing everything up...

Any advise?
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: bobo68 on September 25, 2016, 04:23:53 AM
Quote from: "paolo.bertolo"I suspect the binary data written by dd is not consistent with the initialisation scheme and this is messing everything up...

Any advise?

If you write a dd image to a raw scsi device (which you do) there is no initialization scheme left from before. Where should it be stored? You overwrite all disk blocks with the image blocks (or at least everything from block 0 to the length of the image). The image contains everything: boot blocks, partition scheme, inodes, data. Therefore the initialization step is not necessary.

Please try what you did (skipping initialization) with a known working full disk image like the one in here https://winworldpc.com/download/0C6A74CE-533F-11E4-A90F-7054D21A8599 and tell us what happens.

P.S. I was speculating if ftp is doing an ASCII mode transfer which would corrupt the zip archive. But that should have lead to errors when unzipping.
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: paolo.bertolo on September 25, 2016, 11:20:55 AM
Quote from: "rcberwick"
1. unzip the *.dd.zip file   [much, much faster than on the NeXT.... let's say this is "nextimage.dd"]
2. insert an SD card, and then, if it's mounted automatically, unmount it [on a Mac --]
 (i) diskutil list    [to get the list of devices and find out which one corresponds to the sd card.  Say it's disk4]
 (ii) sudo diskutil unmountDisk disk4  
3. sudo dd if=nextimage.dd of=/dev/rdisk4 bs=1m  
4. sudo diskutil unmountDisk disk4  [on a Mac]
5. Remove the sd card and put it into the scsi2sd adaptor, try to boot.

All right, some positive progress to report: when everything is done on a Mac, it seems as though things are prone to work.
Unfortunately, I had to give up on getting to the same result by working directly on a NeXT, I could not make any progress, blocks written by dd were apparently somehow not consistent and the partition could not even be mounted.

I'm adding a couple of lines to the above mentioned steps.

Start on a Mac...

0. using scsi2sd-util reset the SCSI2SD adaptor (whose set up is independent from the specific content of the SD card) and load the default settings [one single SCSI device, 2 Gb, SCSI address 0]

1. unzip the *.dd.zip file   [much, much faster than on the NeXT.... let's say this is "nextimage.dd"]

unzip *.dd.zip

2. insert a microSD card (an adapter is needed), and then, if it's mounted automatically, unmount it

 (i) diskutil list   [to get the list of devices and find out which one corresponds to the sd card.  Say it's disk4]
 (ii) sudo diskutil unmountDisk disk4  

3. copy the dd file to the local drive (note the "r" in the dev name, you need to access the raw data level)

sudo dd if=nextimage.dd of=/dev/rdisk4 bs=1m  

4. unmount the drive

sudo diskutil unmountDisk disk4

5. Remove the microSD card


...now move to the NeXT Computer

1. Insert the microSD card into the SCSI2SD adaptor

2. disconnect the internal hard drive

3. connect the SCSI2SD adapter in place of the internal drive (when connected to the external SCSI port, I got a panic message [panic: (Cpu 0) scsi_cintr: bad sd_state]

4. boot

5. smile, you are back in 1989 with NeXTSTEP 1.0

6. Assuming you can and you wish to, build a bootable optical disk with the application "BuildDisk" (will take 3 hours)

Thanks to all people who helped finding a solution!
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: paolo.bertolo on September 25, 2016, 11:52:42 AM
Quote from: "bobo68"
Please try what you did (skipping initialisation) with a known working full disk image like the one in here


Already tried, same result. But as soon as I get a second SCSI2SD adapter I can mount in parallel, I will try again.
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: Rob Blessin Black Hole on November 18, 2016, 12:10:18 AM
Hello: Does anyone have clean versions NeXTSTEP .8 and NeXTSTEP .9  images that they can put on drop box for me or point me to a clean download site , the first is preferable.
I tried one of the download sites
DO NOT USE THIS http://vetusware.com  and it is obviously a phishing virus site as it came up with a warning unless I called an 800 number they would delete my harddrive .

Appreciate your help  , I have a 1.0 , my .9 master drive just croaked and am looking for to trying .8   , also any tips appreciated if there are any gotchas installing images to micro sd .
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: mikeboss on November 18, 2016, 04:50:24 AM
both releases you're looking for are part of the collection available here:

https://mega.co.nz/#!h0IRgRLT!WiceqJA2LIhPbWJZvR6CmJstPZwOdZrun8gYo1e-Row

using Google Chrome to download is highly recommended...

regards,
michael
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: user341 on November 20, 2016, 07:59:46 PM
Quote from: "mikeboss"hello NeXT community!

we have been able to confirm the compatibility of almost every release of NeXTSTEP with the NeXT emulator Previous. what we're still missing is NeXTSTEP Release 0.8 or 0.8a. please contact me or andreas_g if you have a working copy. some releases have "special needs" (like we have seen with Release 2.0 which refused to boot). now that 2.0 is running, we would like to check if 0.8 works in Previous or not... thank you!


regards,
michael

NeXT emulator!?!? Where, where where!  That sounds fantastic!  Oh I found it, http://previous.alternative-system.com/index.php/download

Would be great to get a latest version that runs on 10.12
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: andreas_g on November 21, 2016, 12:30:45 AM
zombie, you should have a look here: http://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2642&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=1050
Title: WANTED: images of old system releases
Post by: user341 on November 21, 2016, 10:18:13 AM
Quote from: "andreas_g"zombie, you should have a look here: http://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2642&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=1050

Thank you Andreas!

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