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  • History of OS-9/68k

    From Allan R. Batteiger@21:1/5 to Ralf Kiefer on Fri Sep 23 13:36:10 2016
    R.Kiefer.SPAEM@gmx.de (Ralf Kiefer) wrote in news:1mu03v8.1v0side1xlsxb5N% R.Kiefer.SPAEM@gmx.de:

    http://www.ralf-kiefer.de/TEMP/Byte7712.jpg


    I will try to start a blog page on teh microware.com www site. Everyone
    can contribute a piece of history. We should be able to build a faily complete timeline.

    Allan

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  • From Ralf Kiefer@21:1/5 to All on Fri Sep 23 00:36:19 2016
    Hi,

    actually I try to get an overview about the history of OS-9/68k.
    Unfortunately I cannot find a timeline at the web sites of Microware,
    Microsys or RTSI. Freestation, hm, I cannot read anything .... The
    Wikipedias (english and german) are also very incomplete.

    Peter Dibble wrote OS-9 INSIGHTS, but forgot to mention a timeline even
    in his 3.0 EDITION.

    Ok, let's do it from my memory :-) Please, add or correct this:

    1983/4 OS-9 V1.0
    198? OS-9 V1.2
    1987 OS-9 V2.0
    198? OS-9 V2.1
    198? OS-9 V2.2
    198? OS-9 V2.3
    1990 OS-9 V2.4(.5)
    1994 OS-9 V3.0(.3)
    ... ???

    1990 OS-9000 for 80386
    1995 OS-9000 for PPC

    2015 OS-9 V6.0


    2001
    New owner: Radisys

    2013
    New owner: RTSI, MicroSys and Freestation


    BTW the very early days of Microware were "documented" in the December
    1977 issue of the BYTE magazine:
    http://www.ralf-kiefer.de/TEMP/Byte7712.jpg

    - Ralf

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  • From Allen Huffman@21:1/5 to All on Fri Sep 23 07:42:07 2016
    Back when I was teaching OS-9 courses for Microware (1995-2001 era), I would present a timeline of OS-9 during the intro. It looks like I entered most of it on my old website back then, so a few more dates can be found here:

    http://os9al.com/os9history.shtml

    Excerpt:

    Microware Systems Corporation was founded in 1976 by Ken Kaplan.

    1976 - Microware forms then incorporates a year later.
    1977 - RT68 released. Microware ad appears in the first issue of Byte magazine. 1980 - OS-9 for the Motorola 6809 processor is released.
    1983 - OS-9 is ported to the Motorola 68000 processor.
    1989 - OS-9 is rewritten mostly in 'C' for portability. The new version is titled OS-9000 and is released for the IBM-PC 386 as well as 68020 and above processors.
    1995 - OS-9000 is ported to the Motorola PowerPC processor.
    1996 - Other ports follow including: MIPS, Sparc, SH-3, SH-4, ARM, and StrongARM. (If someone could give me the years each processor port was done, I would appreciate it.)
    2000 - Microware begins to produce microcode for Intel's IXP1200 network processor (StrongARM core with microengines). This was significant since the microcode was OS agnostic and could be used without OS-9.
    2001 - SH-5 support. MIPS32 support. RadiSys announces it is purchasing Microware. On August 27, Microware becomes "Microware Communications Software Division", a wholly owned subsidiary of RadiSys.
    2002 - Ken Kaplan, founder of Microware, retires after 25 years.

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  • From Ralf Kiefer@21:1/5 to Allen Huffman on Tue Oct 4 15:36:04 2016
    Allen Huffman wrote:

    Back when I was teaching OS-9 courses for Microware (1995-2001 era), I
    would present a timeline of OS-9 during the intro. It looks like I
    entered most of it on my old website back then, so a few more dates can
    be found here:

    Thanks. But I found some more dates in Peter Dibbles OS-9 INSIGHTS 3.0
    Edition published in 1994.

    What happened between 1998 and 2015? I left the OS-9 business at that
    time, and now I'm interested in hearing about "my" missing part of that
    story :-)


    OS-9/68k:
    1983 OS-9 V1.0
    1985/07 OS-9 V1.2
    1986/11 OS-9 V2.0
    1987/07 OS-9 V2.1
    1988/01 OS-9 V2.2
    1989/07 OS-9 V2.3
    1990 OS-9 V2.4
    1991/12 OS-9 V2.4.4
    199? OS-9 V2.4.5
    1993/09 OS-9 V3.0
    1994/02 OS-9 V3.0.2
    1997/05 OS-9 V3.0.3
    ... ???

    2015 OS-9 V6.0


    Microware general:
    1976 Microware forms then incorporates a year later.
    1977 RT68 released. Microware ad appears in the first issue of Byte
    magazine
    1980 OS-9 for the Motorola 6809 processor is released.
    1983 OS-9 is ported to the Motorola 68000 processor.
    1989 OS-9 is rewritten mostly in 'C' for portability. The new version
    is titled OS-9000 and is released for the IBM-PC 386 as well as
    68020 and above processors.
    1995 OS-9000 is ported to the Motorola PowerPC processor.
    1996 Other ports follow including: MIPS, Sparc, SH-3, SH-4, ARM, and
    StrongARM.
    2000 Microware begins to produce microcode for Intel's IXP1200
    network processor (StrongARM core with microengines). This was
    significant since the microcode was OS agnostic and could be
    used without OS-9.
    2001 New owner: Radisys
    2002 Ken Kaplan, founder of Microware, retires after 25 years
    2013 New owners: RTSI, MicroSys and Freestation


    Ralf

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  • From Ralf Kiefer@21:1/5 to All on Wed Oct 5 00:25:36 2016
    </me> wrote:
    What happened between 1998 and 2015?

    I found the PDF document "Using OS-9 for 68K Processors Version 3.3"
    from Radisys:


    OS-9/68k:
    1983 OS-9 V1.0
    1985/07 OS-9 V1.2
    1986/11 OS-9 V2.0
    1987/07 OS-9 V2.1
    1988/01 OS-9 V2.2
    1989/07 OS-9 V2.3
    1990 OS-9 V2.4
    1991/12 OS-9 V2.4.4
    199? OS-9 V2.4.5
    1993/09 OS-9 V3.0
    1994/02 OS-9 V3.0.2
    1997/05 OS-9 V3.0.3
    ???
    2006/07 OS-9 V3.3
    ???
    2015 OS-9 V6.0


    Ralf

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  • From Allan R. Batteiger@21:1/5 to Ralf Kiefer on Thu Oct 6 13:09:58 2016
    R.Kiefer.SPAEM@gmx.de (Ralf Kiefer) wrote in news:1mumdsa.aclje2129w8xeN% R.Kiefer.SPAEM@gmx.de:

    </me> wrote:
    What happened between 1998 and 2015?

    I found the PDF document "Using OS-9 for 68K Processors Version 3.3"
    from Radisys:


    OS-9/68k:
    1983 OS-9 V1.0
    1985/07 OS-9 V1.2
    1986/11 OS-9 V2.0
    1987/07 OS-9 V2.1
    1988/01 OS-9 V2.2
    1989/07 OS-9 V2.3
    1990 OS-9 V2.4
    1991/12 OS-9 V2.4.4
    199? OS-9 V2.4.5
    1993/09 OS-9 V3.0
    1994/02 OS-9 V3.0.2
    1997/05 OS-9 V3.0.3
    ???
    2006/07 OS-9 V3.3
    ???
    2015 OS-9 V6.0


    Ralf

    There are some issues with the OS-9 release numbering system. At one
    point OS-9 for 68K went from 3.X to 1.3 numbering, Microware LP went
    back to the 3.4 numbering for a Maintence release that included SSL/SSH
    and 64 bit support in 2013. The next release of OS-9 for 68K will be OS-
    9 3.4.2 ( This will have an update to SSL/SSH).

    The X86/PPC/ARM/MIPS number systems went from 3.2 to 4.X to 5.X to 6.X.

    In 2001 Microware was sold to Radisys, In 2013 Radisys sold the
    Microware OS-9 IP to Microware LP which is a Partnership between
    Freestation ( Japan), MicroSys ( Germany) and RTSI LLC ( USA).
    In December 2015 OS-9 6.0 was release which included ARMv7 support for
    OS-9. This was also the first time OS-9 was compiled and released
    outside of Des Moines IA.

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  • From handymandm@gmail.com@21:1/5 to Allan R. Batteiger on Sun Apr 30 03:00:47 2017
    On Thursday, October 6, 2016 at 8:10:04 AM UTC-5, Allan R. Batteiger wrote:
    R.Kiefer.SPAEM@gmx.de (Ralf Kiefer) wrote in news:1mumdsa.aclje2129w8xeN% R.Kiefer.SPAEM@gmx.de:

    </me> wrote:
    What happened between 1998 and 2015?

    I found the PDF document "Using OS-9 for 68K Processors Version 3.3"
    from Radisys:


    OS-9/68k:
    1983 OS-9 V1.0
    1985/07 OS-9 V1.2
    1986/11 OS-9 V2.0
    1987/07 OS-9 V2.1
    1988/01 OS-9 V2.2
    1989/07 OS-9 V2.3
    1990 OS-9 V2.4
    1991/12 OS-9 V2.4.4
    199? OS-9 V2.4.5
    1993/09 OS-9 V3.0
    1994/02 OS-9 V3.0.2
    1997/05 OS-9 V3.0.3
    ???
    2006/07 OS-9 V3.3
    ???
    2015 OS-9 V6.0


    Ralf

    There are some issues with the OS-9 release numbering system. At one
    point OS-9 for 68K went from 3.X to 1.3 numbering, Microware LP went
    back to the 3.4 numbering for a Maintence release that included SSL/SSH
    and 64 bit support in 2013. The next release of OS-9 for 68K will be OS-
    9 3.4.2 ( This will have an update to SSL/SSH).

    The X86/PPC/ARM/MIPS number systems went from 3.2 to 4.X to 5.X to 6.X.

    In 2001 Microware was sold to Radisys, In 2013 Radisys sold the
    Microware OS-9 IP to Microware LP which is a Partnership between
    Freestation ( Japan), MicroSys ( Germany) and RTSI LLC ( USA).
    In December 2015 OS-9 6.0 was release which included ARMv7 support for
    OS-9. This was also the first time OS-9 was compiled and released
    outside of Des Moines IA.

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    The 1.3 release number was not actually the 68K OS Version. The 1.3 version referred to the Enhanced OS9 for 68K CD which was a packaging version number for the CD which included a variety of options and tools.

    The OS version was 3.3.0 or just 3.0. The release version of the OS is contained as 4 one byte values within the init module (Level, Vers, Revis, Edit). This was shipped as binaries for exiting ports and set in the source: init.a. The version (
    without level) is displayed by login and a couple other utilities.
    The version numbers for the OS9000 or C based OS9/xxx for everything but the 68K version moved forward as a group. Since the system source for 68k is a combination of C and assembly, it was numbered separately as it was also not advancing as much as the
    other processors. Utilities for both OS versions are written in C and share a common, though often conditonalized, source.
    Now that the code is owned by Microware LP, Allan's information is obviously the definitive info on version numbers going forward.
    Minor detail but hope it helps.

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