My Mac Quadra 800 should be here today. I've created an A/UX 3.0.1 boot diskette using rawrite win on my Windows box, and the install CD-ROM using my MacBook and ImageCopy.

At this point, I'm about ready to go. The only issue I can think of is whether the external CD-RW that is coming with the box is supported by A/UX. If not, I'll have to by one that is.

I got the Quadra last week and had some time today to open it, clean it up, and figure out what I had:

Quadra 800, M68040, 33MHz
40MB RAM
Quantum LPS540S SCSI 540MB drive
Sony external SCSI CDR
RasterOps 3S video card (removed)
SCSI Jackhammer fast/wide SCSI card (removed)
DigitalDesigns AutoMedia II card (removed)

After cleaning it up, removing the cards I didn't need, installing a SCSI terminator, and putting it all back together, it booted into MacOS System 8.1.

It's a very cool machine, and my first M68000 system.

So what's left? I need a SCSI CDROM that is supported by A/UX. I found one on eBay and it's on its way.

I also need an AAUI adapter. This is a funny Apple proprietary AUI Ethernet connector that outputs to TP. I also found one of those on eBay, and it's on its way.

Someday I may decide to upgrade the RAM to a full 136MB by installing 4 32MB, 72 pin RAM sticks. These go for about $10 apiece, but for now it should run fine on 40MB.

That's it! With a little bit of luck, A/UX should be up and running in about a week.

I got A/UX running on my Quadra 800 a couple of nights ago. After getting a supported CD-ROM drive, installing A/UX 3.0.1 was a breeze. In fact, it was one of the simplest Unix installs I have ever done.

I haven't had much time to play with it yet, but here's what I know today.

A/UX is a bit of a strange beast. It's really MAC OS and Unix together, with one UI. I still find it just a tad confusing, but I know I'll get used to it soon.

It appears to be a fairly SVR2'ish thing, with a lot of BSD'isms. All together, a pretty powerful system. It comes with all the bells and whistles: Core system, development, text processing, TCP/IP networking, UUCP, documentation, and more. It even has X11, including development, which I declined to install.

I haven't had time to figure out how to get ethernet working, but that's my next task. After that, we should be able to telnet into the system, and mount NFS stuff from thisoldmicro to do backups.

More as I learn it.

Tonight I moved the Quadra into the lab, where I have more room and a bunch of equipment. This is where it will live from now on. It's also where my other ancient Unix servers live.

After getting it running there ok, I fixed it so that root wasn't automagically logged in at bootup. Now there is a login window instead.

Next, I plugged in an AAUI adapter.

The Quadra's ethernet card has a non-standard connector, an Apple AUI (AAUI) connector. It's a simple trapezoidal thing and the actual adapter looks like and AUI to TP adapter except it plugs into the Apple port. I had bought a used adapter on eBay for about $4, and when I plugged it in, it lit up very nicely.

After reading in the Admin manual, I discovered I had to rebuild the kernel to enable networking. A simple newconfig and answering a couple of questions about my network dompleted that process.

Then after editing and making some changes to /etc/servers and /etc/inittab, I rebooted, and wyvern2 is on the net! I can telnet to and from it, and ftp works fine, too.

Next I need to figure out how to get it to mount my NFS exports from thisoldmicro.com.

My experience with SVR2 is pretty good, but it was a long time ago. I have some remembering to do.

-Tom