[TUHS] Bruce Evans 386 Minix patches & compiler source

[TUHS] Bruce Evans 386 Minix patches & compiler source

[Jason Stevens via TUHS]

Hi all!
It's been quite a while since I was messing with Minix386 back in the days
when Bruce Evans released a set of patches to bring 386 support.
I'm pretty sure over on oldlinux.org the patch set exists, but I can only
find the one set of binaries of his 386 toolchain.
I know it eventually evolved into the bin86 toolchain that Linus would go on
to use to create real mode boot code, but I don't know if any of the source
code to his 1991/1992 386 toolchain ever got published?
Thanks in advance!

Jason Stevens

[TUHS] Re: Bruce Evans 386 Minix patches & compiler source

[Greg 'groggy' Lehey via TUHS]

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On Monday,  8 September 2025 at 11:27:22 +0100, The UNIX Heritage Society wrote:
> Hi all!
> It's been quite a while since I was messing with Minix386 back in the days
> when Bruce Evans released a set of patches to bring 386 support.
> I'm pretty sure over on oldlinux.org the patch set exists, but I can only
> find the one set of binaries of his 386 toolchain.
> I know it eventually evolved into the bin86 toolchain that Linus would go on
> to use to create real mode boot code, but I don't know if any of the source
> code to his 1991/1992 386 toolchain ever got published?

I received Bruce's computers when he died, and I briefly looked into
some of the data on the disks.  If you can give me some search strings
for file names, I can take a look and possibly find something.

Greg
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[TUHS] Re: Bruce Evans 386 Minix patches & compiler source

[Jason Stevens via TUHS]

Sure here is some:

/local/bin/ld
/local/bin/as
/local/bin/sc
/usr/local/lib/i86/crtso.o
/usr/local/lib/i386/crtso.o 

pre-defined macros seem to be

__LONG_BIG_ENDIAN__
__FIRST_ARG_IN_AX__
__CALLER_SAVES__
__AS386_16__
__AS386_32__

-----Original Message-----
From: Greg 'groggy' Lehey
To: Jason Stevens
Cc: The UNIX Heritage Society
Sent: 9/9/25 12:23 AM
Subject: Re: [TUHS] Bruce Evans 386 Minix patches & compiler source

On Monday,  8 September 2025 at 11:27:22 +0100, The UNIX Heritage
Society wrote:
> Hi all!
> It's been quite a while since I was messing with Minix386 back in the
days
> when Bruce Evans released a set of patches to bring 386 support.
> I'm pretty sure over on oldlinux.org the patch set exists, but I can
only
> find the one set of binaries of his 386 toolchain.
> I know it eventually evolved into the bin86 toolchain that Linus would
go on
> to use to create real mode boot code, but I don't know if any of the
source
> code to his 1991/1992 386 toolchain ever got published?

I received Bruce's computers when he died, and I briefly looked into
some of the data on the disks.  If you can give me some search strings
for file names, I can take a look and possibly find something.

Greg
--
Sent from my desktop computer.
Finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key.
See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
This message is digitally signed.  If your Microsoft mail program
reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA.php

[TUHS] Re: Bruce Evans 386 Minix patches & compiler source

[Jonathan Gray via TUHS]

On Mon, Sep 08, 2025 at 11:27:22AM +0100, Jason Stevens via TUHS wrote:
> Hi all!
> It's been quite a while since I was messing with Minix386 back in the days
> when Bruce Evans released a set of patches to bring 386 support.
> I'm pretty sure over on oldlinux.org the patch set exists, but I can only
> find the one set of binaries of his 386 toolchain.

the version in minix 386 archives (without full sources):
bccbin16.tar.Z
bccbin32.tar.Z
bcclib.tar.Z
bcc.tar.Z

> I know it eventually evolved into the bin86 toolchain that Linus would go on
> to use to create real mode boot code, but I don't know if any of the source
> code to his 1991/1992 386 toolchain ever got published?

FreeBSD has Bruce's C Compiler (bcc) in ports as devel/bcc
http://distcache.freebsd.org/ports-distfiles/bcc.tar.gz
VERSION: 1995 Mar 12 10:29 UTC

same file available at
http://fare.tunes.org/files/asm/bcc-95.3.12.src.tgz

An earlier (1991/1992) version of the as/ld part of it
https://ftp.funet.fi/pub/Linux/bin/as86.src.tar.Z

[TUHS] Re: Bruce Evans 386 Minix patches & compiler source

[Greg 'groggy' Lehey via TUHS]

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On Monday,  8 September 2025 at 11:27:22 +0100, The UNIX Heritage Society wrote:
> Hi all!
> It's been quite a while since I was messing with Minix386 back in the days
> when Bruce Evans released a set of patches to bring 386 support.
> I'm pretty sure over on oldlinux.org the patch set exists, but I can only
> find the one set of binaries of his 386 toolchain.
> I know it eventually evolved into the bin86 toolchain that Linus would go on
> to use to create real mode boot code, but I don't know if any of the source
> code to his 1991/1992 386 toolchain ever got published?
> Thanks in advance!

I may have something for you:

  -rw-r--r--  1 15 wheel  1,204,371  9 Sep  2009 minix-1.5.10.tar.gz
  -rw-r--r--  1 15 wheel    188,964 10 Sep  2009 minix-extra.tar.gz
  -r--r--r--  1 15 wheel 15,247,252 18 Dec  1994 minix.tar.gz

Don't be put off by the dates of the archives; the programs are mainly
from 1992 and 1993.  They're all on http://www.lemis.com/grog/tmp,
which is not readable.  In particular minix.tar.gz could be useful.
Take a look and let me know; there's more to search.

The programs won't stay there; expect wkt to tell you where the end
up, once we have established exactly what they are.

Greg
--
Sent from my desktop computer.
Finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key.
See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
This message is digitally signed.  If your Microsoft mail program
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