Yeah, I know, everyone posts their documentation online these days. So what's the big deal?
Well, you have to realize that the QNX RTOS v2 was replaced by a newer version of the QNX RTOS back in 1991. And the only reason that QNX has posted the manual online is because customers keep asking for it. And the only reason customers keep asking for it is because, after 20 or more years, their QNX 2 systems are *still* running.
How cool is that?
To download the manual (all 144 MB of it), click here.
And for an example of a long-lived QNX-based application, click here.
Very cool. I still have my hard copy binders :-) Heck, I still have my QNX2 boot and install media (not sure if it's readable still, but I have the floppies).
ReplyDeleteBest debugger command ever had to be "FAFB" (Find and Fix Bugs", with "Xyzzy" coming in a close second (especially since it was an extension to a real command).
Having a binder version of the manual would probably have made scanning the pages a lot easier -- we had to (carefully) tear apart a perfect-bound version, which made the process that much more, well, manual. :-)
ReplyDeleteMind you, I think the last rev of the manual was printed only in a perfect-bound edition, so there wasn't much choice.
I think I still have a QNX 2 demo disk at home (remember those?), but even if it were readable, I'd probably need a machine old enough to run it. And the machine would, of course, need a 5 1/4 floppy drive... :-)
I think mine are still binders, so they might be older than the one that you scanned.
ReplyDeleteI probably have the demo disk kicking around too. I actually alpha-tested that for Dan H when it was first being developed. Those weren't 5 1/4" disks though, they were the 3.5" floppies @ 1.44MB, as it was meant to show how much could be crammed into a 2MB flash part.
I have made sure that I kept drives for 5 1/4" and 3.5" around in case I ever need to read one of these disks...
camz, I'm thinking of the QNX *2* demo disk, which preceded the QNX 4-based 1.44 demo floppy by a number of years.
ReplyDeleteI wish I had your foresight: I ended up trashing a bunch of my old 5 1/4 diskettes because I didn't have a machine to read 'em. Not that I would have done anything with the content on them. But still... :-)
AH! Yes! Sorry, my bad... now I remember, that was the one that had the towers of hanoi getting solved on a 2nd virtual console in the background as the demo ran and it was all done in the ASCII slideshow format script.
ReplyDeleteThat's the one. Hm... doing a YouTube video of that old demo would be fun -- especially if the video also included scenes from the more recent 1.44M demo. Actually, half the fun would be digging up machines old enough to do it...
ReplyDeleteI had a look at my QNX binders, they are older... v2.1 :-)
ReplyDeleteWas there any real change to the documentation between v2.1 and v2.2?
ReplyDeleteI still have ring binder versions of the O/S, Quantum C compiler, and the CII C86 C compiler manuals. I'm not sure I'm ambitious enough to scan them, though.
Good gosh, I probably knew the difference between the 2.1 and 2.2 docs -- long, long ago. One of many things I've forgotten...
ReplyDelete- Paul