I have a customer running QNX 2 with an application written for QNX Windows. He has no development environment but wants to make some changes. I’ve checked with QNX in Ottawa and the development system is no longer available. Does anyone have this software and/or documentation?
What about contacting Basis Computer systems (Frank Kolnick) and seeing if he still has copies for sale.
I last developed in QNX windows on QNX2 in 1993 after which we started developing everything in QNX windows on QNX 4. The company I worked for at the time was Atlantis Aerospace based in Brampton, Ontario. If you are desperate, I can email a person I know who still works there and ask if there they have old development environment disks + doc’s lying around someplace in storage.
I would say we are pretty desperate. QNX does not supply this product anymore. The mitigation factor is that I don't know if having the stuff will help.
OK, I’ve sent the email to my friend. Lets see what happens.
In the mean time I looked through all my old personal stuff from that era and I found something that says the QNX windows development was available through Klondike Software in Nepean, Ontario (they also sold FreezeIt for taking screen captures if you recall that product). Googling around I found they still exist with the same phone number:
Sorry, no go. My friend reported that they threw it all out years ago.
I’m honestly shocked every time I see someone still running something in QNX2. I bet the amount of money they have to pay to find hardware that still works and your time to make it work should pay for an upgrade to at least QNX4. QNX Windows is still quasi supported there and I recall there being a migration kit for QNX Windows (I saw a torrent of it when I was googling around) and using it 20 years ago to bring our QNX Windows stuff from QNX2 to QNX4. It wasn’t particularly difficult.
I understood that from the initial post where you need the development environment.
But are you saying they don’t have the source code either? In which case any modification = rewrite from scratch anyway so why not rewrite in QNX 4 or 6 since the application can’t be that complex given what computer limits were on CPU/Ram in those days.
Also depending on the application and how old it is, it might have been written with the C86 compiler or the original QNX compiler that was only 16 bit and could only address 64K of Ram (that’s what I recall using with QNX Windows). But you know all that already since you know QNX2.
That’s right. In context to my other comments, I understand how this could be confusing.
They don’t want to change the application. They want to be able to automatically control it through the GUI, by moving the mouse and pressing mouse buttons through software. I’ve been led to believe that this is possible by someone who should know. This would require the development system and documentation.
I hope I’ve explained this confusion.
The QNX computers control hardware. There is no documentation on how this works. Reverse engineering doesn’t seem likely. The company that built the machine is long gone. The client is stuck with the existing software. The cost to replace this hardware is in the 7-8 figure area.
C86 hasn’t come up as an issue yet. I still have a running C86 if becomes necessary.