Does anybody know if QNX is available for the Mac ?
Please respond via email, as I don’t check this newsgroup that often.
It is not available, but maybe if enough people beg for it…
“Nikita Urazbaev” <urz@mac.com> wrote in message
news:B6051CE2.6850%urz@mac.com…
Does anybody know if QNX is available for the Mac ?
Please respond via email, as I don’t check this newsgroup that often.
The 9600 was the last true Open Firmware Mac. Then came the first
Beige G3 and the door was slammed shut on non-Mac OS. The Linux
community has taken all the publically available info on the G3/G4
Macs and reverse engineered the rest to make it work. Be is in the
OS business to make money. They cannot afford the time to
do reverse engineering which can be easily defeated by Apple with
a minor design change which Be would have to do more hacking to
fix BeOS.
The best bet for running an “alternative OS” on a Mac is to get
one of the final 603/604 PCI PowerMacs and drop in a G3 or G4
upgrade. You’ll still have to contend with a 66Mhz or slower bus
speed and performance will be lacking VS x86 hardware with 75Mhz+
bus speeds. FYI. BeOS runs just fine on the PowerMac 7500 after
swapping the stock 601 CPU out for a 603 or better. All the info
needed to write a new OS for the 7500 through 9600 (and most of
the clones) is publically available. I’d love to have a Pios Magna,
the last, fastest MacClone they built, then G4 it. 
Not sold in
the USA unfortunately. 
(Then there are those brand new leftover
25Mhz 040 Amigas available from amiga.com ) Heh.
Eric Berdahl wrote:
In article <> 39E1BBAF.4AEC5A7C@switch.com> >, “J. Scott Franko”
jsfranko@switch.com> > wrote:Not available. Can run on PowerPC’s though.
Apple’s BIOS is called Open Firmware, so you’d think it would be easy to
get info and do it.
[snip]
Apple has seemingly gone so far as to kick BeOS off the platform (BeOS
says Apple wouldn’t give them any info), but many Linux’s survive there
(YellowDog, Suse, MkLinux, etc).Be’s line is slightly different. You have to hear the whole argument for
it all to make sense…Open Firmware doesn’t help too much because it only really defines the
interface between the boot code and the OS and allows you to write
platform independent boot code for any given piece of hardware. That’s
the trick: Apple uses special ASICs on all its motherboards which an OS
needs to manipulate to make that board run properly. Once you have the
docs on a given chip, you can easily write Open Firmware code to deal
with it at boot time, but once the OS-proper loads, you need OS-specific
drivers. That assumes that you have docs for the chips.Be asked Apple for docs so they could support BeOS on Apple CPUs. Apple
declined. I don’t know any details of that negotiation, just the end
result – Be does not have docs and BeOS doesn’t run on the latest Macs.The Be developer community remarked that MkLinux and LinuxPPC run just
fine on these systems, so someone could use the linux sources as a
roadmap for BeOS drivers and release BeOS on Macs. Be declined to follow
that path. They argued that using linux source as a roadmap is not a
reasonable substitute for proper documentation, particularly if you run
into problems that can’t be solved without objective documentation. Be
further argued that they would rather spend their time and money
supporting platforms whose manufacturers want BeOS to work and who are
willing to help. In other words, if Apple doesn’t want to help and Intel
does, they’ll work on Intel.I imagine that QNX has much the same choices. I seriously doubt that
Apple will give QNX proper docs, but QNX could use the various open
source OSes as roadmaps. Alternatively, a sufficiently motivated group
of QNX developers may be able to use the highly modular nature of
Neutrino to write our own drivers and make them available to other
like-minded developers (if anyone does this, count me in).Hope this helps,
Eric
Not available. Can run on PowerPC’s though.
Apple’s BIOS is called Open Firmware, so you’d think it would be easy to
get info and do it. This was once a company goal (to have multiple OS’s
running on a Common Hardware Reference Platform (CHRP), which I think IBM
is still supporting somewhat for the PowerPC chips it makes) during the
ill fated clone wars of Emporer Amelio’s rein. Obi Jobs Kenobi, has
since had the clone’s exterminated. (forgive my mangling of the Star Wars
lore)
Apple has seemingly gone so far as to kick BeOS off the platform (BeOS
says Apple wouldn’t give them any info), but many Linux’s survive there
(YellowDog, Suse, MkLinux, etc).
I have seen some realtime hooks in MacOS X Public Beta though.
getpriority, setprority man page is there. It does threads. It’s posix
compliant. It has various scheduling algo’s. Probably not as nice as
QNX4 though as far as realtime goes.
Scott
Nikita Urazbaev wrote:
Does anybody know if QNX is available for the Mac ?
Please respond via email, as I don’t check this newsgroup that often.
I would beg (it would be so cool if I didn’t have to buy an x86 platform,
and could run this stuff on my PowerBook (its got ATI graphics so it’d have
to work!), but I’m sure it would do no good. Apple would probably fight
this.
Mario Charest wrote:
It is not available, but maybe if enough people beg for it…
“Nikita Urazbaev” <> urz@mac.com> > wrote in message
news:B6051CE2.6850%> urz@mac.com> …
Does anybody know if QNX is available for the Mac ?Please respond via email, as I don’t check this newsgroup that often.
“J. Scott Franko” <jsfranko@switch.com> wrote in message
news:39E1BBAF.4AEC5A7C@switch.com…
Not available. Can run on PowerPC’s though.
I said not available.
I agree with you, if it was available I’d get a G4Cube 
Mario, I never new you were such a Mac fan! ssshhhh! I won’t tell
anyone! You have to be die hard to buy the overpriced cube! But it is
sooo cooool!
Mario Charest wrote:
“J. Scott Franko” <> jsfranko@switch.com> > wrote in message
news:> 39E1BBAF.4AEC5A7C@switch.com> …
Not available. Can run on PowerPC’s though.
I said not available.I agree with you, if it was available I’d get a G4Cube >
I’m not a fan of Mac I hever had a Mac nor plan to run one.
But PC hardware suck so much that I would jumpon the opportunity
to run QRTP on something else then x86 base machine.
“J. Scott Franko” <jsfranko@switch.com> wrote in message
news:39E1E4B6.B959421E@switch.com…
Mario, I never new you were such a Mac fan! ssshhhh! I won’t tell
anyone! You have to be die hard to buy the overpriced cube! But it is
sooo cooool!Mario Charest wrote:
“J. Scott Franko” <> jsfranko@switch.com> > wrote in message
news:> 39E1BBAF.4AEC5A7C@switch.com> …
Not available. Can run on PowerPC’s though.
I said not available.I agree with you, if it was available I’d get a G4Cube >
In article <39E1BBAF.4AEC5A7C@switch.com>, “J. Scott Franko”
<jsfranko@switch.com> wrote:
Not available. Can run on PowerPC’s though.
Apple’s BIOS is called Open Firmware, so you’d think it would be easy to
get info and do it.
[snip]
Apple has seemingly gone so far as to kick BeOS off the platform (BeOS
says Apple wouldn’t give them any info), but many Linux’s survive there
(YellowDog, Suse, MkLinux, etc).
Be’s line is slightly different. You have to hear the whole argument for
it all to make sense…
Open Firmware doesn’t help too much because it only really defines the
interface between the boot code and the OS and allows you to write
platform independent boot code for any given piece of hardware. That’s
the trick: Apple uses special ASICs on all its motherboards which an OS
needs to manipulate to make that board run properly. Once you have the
docs on a given chip, you can easily write Open Firmware code to deal
with it at boot time, but once the OS-proper loads, you need OS-specific
drivers. That assumes that you have docs for the chips.
Be asked Apple for docs so they could support BeOS on Apple CPUs. Apple
declined. I don’t know any details of that negotiation, just the end
result – Be does not have docs and BeOS doesn’t run on the latest Macs.
The Be developer community remarked that MkLinux and LinuxPPC run just
fine on these systems, so someone could use the linux sources as a
roadmap for BeOS drivers and release BeOS on Macs. Be declined to follow
that path. They argued that using linux source as a roadmap is not a
reasonable substitute for proper documentation, particularly if you run
into problems that can’t be solved without objective documentation. Be
further argued that they would rather spend their time and money
supporting platforms whose manufacturers want BeOS to work and who are
willing to help. In other words, if Apple doesn’t want to help and Intel
does, they’ll work on Intel.
I imagine that QNX has much the same choices. I seriously doubt that
Apple will give QNX proper docs, but QNX could use the various open
source OSes as roadmaps. Alternatively, a sufficiently motivated group
of QNX developers may be able to use the highly modular nature of
Neutrino to write our own drivers and make them available to other
like-minded developers (if anyone does this, count me in).
Hope this helps,
Eric
I thought that a few months ago someone at QNX posted saying they had an
iMac running on Neutrino. The “only” thing lacking was the USB keyboard and
mouse…
I guess I imagined it…
J. Scott Franko <jsfranko@switch.com> wrote in message
news:39E1BBAF.4AEC5A7C@switch.com…
Not available. Can run on PowerPC’s though.
Apple’s BIOS is called Open Firmware, so you’d think it would be easy to
get info and do it. This was once a company goal (to have multiple OS’s
running on a Common Hardware Reference Platform (CHRP), which I think IBM
is still supporting somewhat for the PowerPC chips it makes) during the
ill fated clone wars of Emporer Amelio’s rein. Obi Jobs Kenobi, has
since had the clone’s exterminated. (forgive my mangling of the Star Wars
lore)Apple has seemingly gone so far as to kick BeOS off the platform (BeOS
says Apple wouldn’t give them any info), but many Linux’s survive there
(YellowDog, Suse, MkLinux, etc).I have seen some realtime hooks in MacOS X Public Beta though.
getpriority, setprority man page is there. It does threads. It’s posix
compliant. It has various scheduling algo’s. Probably not as nice as
QNX4 though as far as realtime goes.Scott
Nikita Urazbaev wrote:
Does anybody know if QNX is available for the Mac ?
Please respond via email, as I don’t check this newsgroup that often.
Now that you mention it, I thought I heard that too. Must have just been a
rumor.
Stephen Thomas wrote:
I thought that a few months ago someone at QNX posted saying they had an
iMac running on Neutrino. The “only” thing lacking was the USB keyboard and
mouse…I guess I imagined it…
J. Scott Franko <> jsfranko@switch.com> > wrote in message
news:> 39E1BBAF.4AEC5A7C@switch.com> …
Not available. Can run on PowerPC’s though.Apple’s BIOS is called Open Firmware, so you’d think it would be easy to
get info and do it. This was once a company goal (to have multiple OS’s
running on a Common Hardware Reference Platform (CHRP), which I think IBM
is still supporting somewhat for the PowerPC chips it makes) during the
ill fated clone wars of Emporer Amelio’s rein. Obi Jobs Kenobi, has
since had the clone’s exterminated. (forgive my mangling of the Star Wars
lore)Apple has seemingly gone so far as to kick BeOS off the platform (BeOS
says Apple wouldn’t give them any info), but many Linux’s survive there
(YellowDog, Suse, MkLinux, etc).I have seen some realtime hooks in MacOS X Public Beta though.
getpriority, setprority man page is there. It does threads. It’s posix
compliant. It has various scheduling algo’s. Probably not as nice as
QNX4 though as far as realtime goes.Scott
Nikita Urazbaev wrote:
Does anybody know if QNX is available for the Mac ?
Please respond via email, as I don’t check this newsgroup that often.
Yeah, thats the story I heard too. I beleive though, that it had more to do
with Gaisee being miffed at Apple (him Be(ing) a former employee and all) for
not picking the BeOS to be the underpinnings for MacOS X (then Rhapsody).
I has much more of a soap opera feel to it than the official story! ;O)
Scott
Eric Berdahl wrote:
In article <> 39E1BBAF.4AEC5A7C@switch.com> >, “J. Scott Franko”
jsfranko@switch.com> > wrote:Not available. Can run on PowerPC’s though.
Apple’s BIOS is called Open Firmware, so you’d think it would be easy to
get info and do it.
[snip]
Apple has seemingly gone so far as to kick BeOS off the platform (BeOS
says Apple wouldn’t give them any info), but many Linux’s survive there
(YellowDog, Suse, MkLinux, etc).Be’s line is slightly different. You have to hear the whole argument for
it all to make sense…Open Firmware doesn’t help too much because it only really defines the
interface between the boot code and the OS and allows you to write
platform independent boot code for any given piece of hardware. That’s
the trick: Apple uses special ASICs on all its motherboards which an OS
needs to manipulate to make that board run properly. Once you have the
docs on a given chip, you can easily write Open Firmware code to deal
with it at boot time, but once the OS-proper loads, you need OS-specific
drivers. That assumes that you have docs for the chips.Be asked Apple for docs so they could support BeOS on Apple CPUs. Apple
declined. I don’t know any details of that negotiation, just the end
result – Be does not have docs and BeOS doesn’t run on the latest Macs.The Be developer community remarked that MkLinux and LinuxPPC run just
fine on these systems, so someone could use the linux sources as a
roadmap for BeOS drivers and release BeOS on Macs. Be declined to follow
that path. They argued that using linux source as a roadmap is not a
reasonable substitute for proper documentation, particularly if you run
into problems that can’t be solved without objective documentation. Be
further argued that they would rather spend their time and money
supporting platforms whose manufacturers want BeOS to work and who are
willing to help. In other words, if Apple doesn’t want to help and Intel
does, they’ll work on Intel.I imagine that QNX has much the same choices. I seriously doubt that
Apple will give QNX proper docs, but QNX could use the various open
source OSes as roadmaps. Alternatively, a sufficiently motivated group
of QNX developers may be able to use the highly modular nature of
Neutrino to write our own drivers and make them available to other
like-minded developers (if anyone does this, count me in).Hope this helps,
Eric
In article <39E15A51.7CE210B1@valint.net>, “Gregg E.”
<gregg1@valint.net> wrote:
The 9600 was the last true Open Firmware Mac.
I don’t believe this is a true statement. Being a driver writer, I can
attest to the fact that Open Firmware is alive and well in all the
latest machines, including the G4. The issue isn’t Open Firmware or no
Open Firmware. Open Firmware only gets you to the point that the boot
bios hands off to the host operating system. After that point, the host
operating system still needs to know how to interact with all the funny
chipsets on the main board. That’s where the schism lies in the latest
Macs – the chipsets are all proprietary to Apple.
This begs the question of whether Neutrino could or should be gotten
running on the latest Macs. I still maintain that it is possible to use
the linux distributions as a roadmap for writing Neutrino drivers to the
various chips on the motherboard. I also question whether it’s worth
QNX’s time or anyone else’s to do so.
In article <39E35EBF.B5309DF@switch.com>, “J. Scott Franko”
<jsfranko@switch.com> wrote:
Yeah, thats the story I heard too. I beleive though, that it had more to
do
with Gaisee being miffed at Apple (him Be(ing) a former employee and all)
for
not picking the BeOS to be the underpinnings for MacOS X (then Rhapsody).I has much more of a soap opera feel to it than the official story! ;O)
There may be something to that. However, my impression of Jean-Louis is
that he would have made it work if he had the opportunity. I don’t think
Be particularly liked having no choice but Intel. If he could have
deployed on Intel and PPC, I think Be would have been much happier.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t find a way to do that given the fact that
Apple was being pig-headed.