I'm working on a version of the Previous emulator that runs in a browser (demo (
https://infinitemac.org/1994/NeXTSTEP%203.3), more details in this thread (
https://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/index.php?topic=5445)). I'd like to have all major OS versions represented, as close as possible to their original state.
For more recent versions (e.g. 3.x) installation media is available, but I'm struggling with the early releases. WinWorld has HD images (
https://winworldpc.com/product/nextstep/0x), but I'm unclear of their provenance, and they're rather large. I realize original releases were done on MO disks that were modified, but does anyone have dumps of something closer to their release date?
Thanks for any leads!
Provenance is something I really worry about. I have a bunch of 3.0 and some PR original CDs that I ripped that Im happy to share, but sounds like you have those. It would be nice if you get a clean set of images if you could share them with Rob here and we can have a "clean set" we are all comfortable with (with posted hashes).
I created these images a decade ago. somehow they all ended up on WinWorld... here's the thread from back then:
https://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/index.php?topic=3406and a link to the zip file containing all images:
https://mega.nz/file/F0Q22KKb#WiceqJA2LIhPbWJZvR6CmJstPZwOdZrun8gYo1e-RowEDIT:
gtnicol provided an image of a factory fresh 1.0a optical disk which I used to create the 1.0a image:
https://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/index.php?topic=2642
Hopefully this can happen someday. I was revisiting the earlier systems recently with Previous and wishing some of them were more stock.
Dump files are great but to get really nit-picky about preservation I guess these MO disks would really need to be image dumped. You can't dd them in NS/OS as it will skip the boot portion of the disk. It has to be done from another system, like linux to see the entire disk. So you need a functioning MO drive and a non-NeXT OS to run dd from.
Quote from: protocol7 on February 04, 2024, 05:54:24 AMYou can't dd them in NS/OS as it will skip the boot portion of the disk.
Is this really the case or is it an artifact of using the wrong block device to dd the disk? Per the sd(4) manpage (
http://www.polarhome.com/service/man/?qf=sd&af=0&sf=0&of=NeXTSTEP&tf=2), you have to use /dev/sdNh (N being some digit, h being the critical "live partition" designator) to get to the raw blocks of a SCSI hard drive. Now of course optical drives aren't SCSI devices, and the od(4) manpage (
http://www.polarhome.com/service/man/?qf=od&af=0&sf=4&of=NeXTSTEP&tf=2) doesn't talk about a live partition, but it might be worth a shot to see if the /dev/odNh device works that way.
If not, I expect it's fairly likely that you can write a program to access the optical drive with system calls. I did this for hard drives once when I wanted to use my NeXTstation to dump a SCSI hard drive larger than 2 GiB. (NEXTSTEP's dd fails when you dump more data than that.) I'd volunteer to try and write such a program, but both of my optical drives are kaput.
Quote from: stepleton on February 04, 2024, 06:46:46 AMIs this really the case or is it an artifact of using the wrong block device to dd the disk?
I could very well be wrong as I don't have the means to test this. Just reiterating what I've picked up elsewhere.
The only dd image I have from a MO disk is the dd version of the 1.0a image from gtnicol that mikeboss mentioned above and that won't boot in Previous. Gives a Bad Disk error.
Quote from: protocol7 on February 04, 2024, 07:14:34 AMThe only dd image I have from a MO disk is the dd version of the 1.0a image from gtnicol that mikeboss mentioned above and that won't boot in Previous. Gives a Bad Disk error.
see post #246 here:
https://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/index.php?topic=2642
Quote from: mikeboss on February 04, 2024, 07:35:16 AMsee post #246 here: https://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/index.php?topic=2642
Thanks mike! The utility from andreas mentioned there should help to make the image bootable, but the issue remains that the image itself isn't complete. If it was, it would boot without needing any additional steps. Certainly not complaining here. Just pointing out that it's possible to dump incomplete images.
It's a similar situation to how so many Mac OS CDs were ripped without the boot partitions, making them non-bootable.
Quote from: protocol7 on February 04, 2024, 07:53:45 AMThanks mike! The utility from andreas mentioned there should help to make the image bootable, but the issue remains that the image itself isn't complete. If it was, it would boot without needing any additional steps.
It might still be complete. The problem is, that there is ECC data on all MO disks that is not accessible by the user but required for accurate simulation of the MO disk drive. I am afraid there is no way to run unmodified MO disk images in Previous. Only MO disks created within Previous will run.
Thanks for that info andreas.
I feel like I might be steering this off-topic. But hopefully it's helpful to bring up this info.
Just have to find clean install media now.
Quote from: mikeboss on February 03, 2024, 11:26:43 PMI created these images a decade ago. somehow they all ended up on WinWorld... here's the thread from back then: https://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/index.php?topic=3406
Thanks! Looking at the NS08.dd disk image with the ditool that comes with Previous, I see that it's 2GB, but has a couple of partitions that only add up to 977 MB (and I'm not sure about the role of the second partition either).
Disk 'DORS' 'NeXT_0_8' 'fixed_rw_scsi' 2061 MBytes
Sector size: 1024 Bytes
Partition #0: 4.3BSD 831 MBytes
Mount point: '/'
Fragment size: 1024 Bytes
Block size: 8192 Bytes
Partition #1: 4.3BSD 146 MBytes
Mount point: '/mntb'
Fragment size: 1024 Bytes
Block size: 8192 Bytes
Do you happen to recall how you created this dump? Is there a tool to manipulate/trim the partition list (ditool is read-only)?
Quote from: mihai on February 04, 2024, 02:11:39 PMDo you happen to recall how you created this dump?
sorry, can't remember anymore... release 0.8, 0.9 and 4.0 are the ones I think I just downloaded from I don't know where ;-) the others I created from install media. as far as I remember...
I may have dumps of the install media for some of the early releases. Unfortunately I'm in the middle of trying to migrate my archives from a machine that failed (Dell r510) which is proving to be a PITA...