From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.0 required=5.0 tests=MAILING_LIST_MULTI, T_SCC_BODY_TEXT_LINE autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: (qmail 831 invoked from network); 31 Dec 2023 23:06:29 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (2600:3c01:e000:146::1) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 31 Dec 2023 23:06:29 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [IPv6:::1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5372B43E7E; Mon, 1 Jan 2024 09:06:25 +1000 (AEST) Received: from mcvoy.com (mcvoy.com [192.169.23.250]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id B2C2C43E7D for ; Mon, 1 Jan 2024 09:06:17 +1000 (AEST) Received: by mcvoy.com (Postfix, from userid 3546) id 0C24335E424; Sun, 31 Dec 2023 15:06:16 -0800 (PST) Date: Sun, 31 Dec 2023 15:06:15 -0800 From: Larry McVoy To: "G. Branden Robinson" Message-ID: <20231231230615.GE19322@mcvoy.com> References: <6470c59f-a1e5-418f-803d-76bcd761f530@tnetconsulting.net> <20231231224649.h45pogxycgkgs673@illithid> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20231231224649.h45pogxycgkgs673@illithid> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.24 (2015-08-30) Message-ID-Hash: BQMLP6ZZZ7T67JNTT46HTVT3YHNTEVVU X-Message-ID-Hash: BQMLP6ZZZ7T67JNTT46HTVT3YHNTEVVU X-MailFrom: lm@mcvoy.com X-Mailman-Rule-Misses: dmarc-mitigation; no-senders; approved; emergency; loop; banned-address; member-moderation; nonmember-moderation; administrivia; implicit-dest; max-recipients; max-size; news-moderation; no-subject; digests; suspicious-header CC: The Unix Heritage Society X-Mailman-Version: 3.3.6b1 Precedence: list Subject: [TUHS] Re: Question about BSD disklabel history List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list Archived-At: List-Archive: List-Help: List-Owner: List-Post: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: On Sun, Dec 31, 2023 at 04:46:49PM -0600, G. Branden Robinson wrote: > At 2023-12-31T16:31:00-0500, Clem Cole wrote: > > Next (ney Apple) started with the Mach code base from CMU. There was > > a push in the Valley in those days for something called OpenFirmware > > [Warner help here -- I think that it was forth based IIRC, and Sun may > > have had their hand in it also]. > > I'm not Warner but I owned and operated a few OpenFirmware based > machines. > > > But the key is that it ran on 68K's. > > I don't think that's the case. OpenFirmware (OF) ran on SPARC and > PowerPC hardware, at least. And since it was indeed Forth-based, in > principle it could have been ported practically anywhere (assuming > memory requirements for OF itself were met). OpenFirmware is Mitch Bradley's baby. I believe it ran on 68k Suns, there was some sort of boot prom there. I mostly used it on SPARC. It was pretty powerful but my personal feeling is the choice of Forth didn't help. Yeah, I get it, Forth is like some weird lisp and the lisp people love lisp. What the lisp people don't get is there are a lot more people who don't love lisp than do love lisp. And trying to get everyone to love lisp isn't gonna happen. That said, what else could Mitch have used at the time? Tcl? Please, another weird lisp. Perl? Not really something that wants to talk to the bare metal. It's a serious question, is there anything that Mitch could have used that would have had wider appeal? And I agree whole heartedly with the EFI crap being a giant step backwards.