Post by Mike NowlenFor Sale: COSMOS CMS-16/UNX, Vintage UNIX Computer and Sun Multibus
boards
An interesting bit of history.
Post by Mike NowlenI have COSMOS CMS-16/UNX system available, probably early 80's. I
understand it ran a Unisoft port of v7 UNIX in a 8Mhz 68000 CPU and
1MB of RAM with Intel Multibus. Some of the boards were also used in
Sun Multibus systems
I have one similar -- except that it also has a separate card to
talk to a 16 serial port box external to the machine.
Post by Mike Nowlen-System Shelf - 9 slot Multibus with Power Supply, Front Cover and Key
Switch with Key
-CMT-CPU Multibus 68000 Processor Board, w/ Manual
Hmm ... I'm trying to remember whether there was a manual for my
CPU board. There were manuals for many of the other boards.
Post by Mike Nowlen-QTY 2, PSM 512A Multibus Error Correcting DRAM Boards, w/ Manual
These were faster than the original RAM boards supplied with the
system. As a result, the dhrystone benchmarks were somewhat improved.
* MACHINE MICROPROCESSOR OPERATING COMPILER DHRYSTONES/SEC.
* TYPE SYSTEM NO REG REGS
* -------------------------- ------------ ----------- ---------------
* Cosmos 68000-8Mhz UniSoft cc 305 322
* Cosmos 68000-8Mhz UniSoft cc 365 394 - My machine (Plessy ram cards)
Here are the entries from my copy of the dhrystone sources. As
a comparison, here are a couple of other nearby entries:
* turbo XT v20-4.77Mhz MSDOS 3.2 MIX C 35 35
* turbo XT v20-6.67Mhz MSDOS 3.2 MIX C 56 56
* IBM PC/XT 8088-4.77Mhz PC/IX cc 257 287
* IBM PC/XT 8088-4.77Mhz VENIX/86 2.0 cc 297 324
* IBM PC 8088-4.77Mhz MSDOS 2.0 b16cc 2.0 310 340
* IBM PC 8088-4.77Mhz MSDOS 2.0 CI-C86 2.20M 390 390
* IBM PC/XT 8088-4.77Mhz PCDOS 2.1 Lattice 2.15 403 - @
* PDP-11/34 - UNIX V7M cc 387 438
* Onyx C8002 Z8000-4Mhz IS/1 1.1 (V7) cc 476 511
Post by Mike Nowlen-Interphase SMD 2181 Storage Module Controller/Formatter,(used in Sun)
w/Manual
I used this with Fijitsu M2312K 84MB 8" SMD drives. And yes,
they were also used in Sun-2 machines.
Post by Mike Nowlen-Ciprico Tapemaster 1/2" Tape Drive Controller (used in Sun)
Ditto -- With a Cipher front-loading 9-track tape drive.
Post by Mike NowlenSee pictures of the above at
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/mnowlen/cosmos.html
I also have another Multibus chassis with power supply available along
with some auxiliary bus connectors.
This was probably the chassis which held one 8" floppy, one
floppy controller (from SASI -- the predecessor to SCSI), and
(marginally) one 84MB 8" Fujitsu M2312K. (The power supply was rather
strained in this case.) I first ran it with a 10MB 8" drive controlled
from the same SASI/SCSI controller card, which could handle two 8"
floppies and two of the 10MB Seagate drives at once -- but not all in
that one chassis. :-)
Post by Mike NowlenPlease e-mail any offers for part or whole.
Not really interested in having another. The one I have has been
retired for quite some time, though I may connect it back up someday.
FWIW -- the Unisoft port of the C compiler left a lot to be
desired. It seems that if the PDP-11 did not have a similar
instruction, the compiler did without it -- other than the "LINK" and
"ULNK" instructions. I was using both it and a 3b1 to crack a password
entry on a Tektronix 6130 (NS 32016 CPU), and the speed difference
between the two was a lot larger than could be accounted for by the
difference between 8MHz and 10MHz, and even the difference between the
68000 and the 68010, so I would up looking at the assembly-language code
generated by the two machines for some simple programs. :-)
I learned a *lot* about unix from my machine -- including how to
patch the kernel to change the timezone, since it was assumed that you
would have the source to re-compile the kernel, and I did not -- and the
company which made the machine was already dead by the time I realized
the problem.
But it took me a while to get confident enough to patch the
kernel -- so I named the machine "Owlsley", on the theory that someone
who had his record would probably be unclear about having changed
timezone, so I could live with the compiled-in PDT.
Fixing things when the DST change algorithm changed by law was a
different matter. I was able to re-compile a new library from
net-available sources for programs which *I* compiled, but any which
came with the system were a different matter -- and this machine was
from before the concept of shared libs would allow a fix to become
global. :-)
Post by Mike NowlenThanks for reading,
Mike Nowlen
Reston, VA
You're not too far away. I'm in Vienna, VA. :-)
And I'm not going to try e-mail -- simply because something has
gone wrong, and I've received no e-mail today. I'm not yet sure why.
Enjoy,
DoN.
P.S. Aside from the 68000 CPU -- I'm not quite sure why it is in
comp.sys.3b1, unless you figure that anyone with an interest
in 3b1s (also 68k powered -- the 68010) might be interested
in all 68k powered unix boxen. I know that I was interested in
such, and remained with the 68k family up through the last of
the Sun-3 line. (My Sun Ultra-2 doesn't know what I'm talking
about. :-)
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