[TUHS] Re: Clever code (was Re: Re: Stdin Redirect in Cu History/Alternatives?

[Liam Proven <lproven@gmail.com>]

On Tue, 20 Dec 2022 at 09:31, Andrew Warkentin <andreww591@gmail.com> wrote:

> QNX Classic and 4.x only ran on x86 machines, most of which were
> either standard PCs or at least sort of PC-like (although AFAIK the
> ability to run without a BIOS was present very early on). It was quite
> common to run QNX on desktops as a development host for embedded
> systems AFAIK.
>
> GUIs for QNX predate the Amiga deal, and have existed since the late
> 80s. The original was QNX Windows, which was either a reimplementation
> or port (not quite sure which) of Open Look on a custom non-X11 window
> server, running on later versions of 2.x and all versions of 4.x.
>
> Later versions of 4.x added Photon 1, which looks like a cross between
> Motif and Windows 9x, again based on a custom window server (this time
> with a rather unconventional multi-process architecture). The 90s-era
> demo disk was based on 4.25 and Photon 1 (there was also a 2.x demo
> disk back in the 80s but this didn't have a GUI).

Fascinating. Thanks for setting the record straight, and I apologise
for my inaccurate speculation.
>
> 6.0 came with Photon 2, which is still Win9x-ish in terms of
> organization and is a fairly straightforward evolution of Photon 1,
> although the widgets look very vaguely Amiga-like in 6.0-6.2. 6.0 came
> out slightly after the Amiga deal, so that might be the reason for the
> Amiga-like theming.
>
> Neutrino was not the name of a GUI, but rather of the entire OS that
> succeeded QNX 4 (the first versions of Neutrino used Photon 1 but were
> incapable of self-hosting and were developed alongside 4.x; 6.0 was
> the first mainline QNX version to be Neutrino-based).

Aha!

> There were also the i-Opener (running 4.25) and Audrey (running 6.0)
> internet appliances of the late 90s.

I did not realise they were QNX devices. I vaguely thought the 3Com
Audrey was based on BeIA, in fact, but I must be confusing it with
something else -- perhaps the Sony eVilla.


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