Michael Engel

In 1978, Prof. Verbaeten ported 7th Ed. Unix to the Motorola 68000 at KU Leuven in Belgium. This port is not archived at TUHS, only mentioned here:
https://eng.kuleuven.be/en/stories/50-years-of-computer-science-engineering
https://museum.cs.kuleuven.be/misc/Tim_Ameye_Sander_Van_Loock_40-jaar.pdf (p. 12)

There's also a paper describing the port which is not available:
Verbaeten, P., Berbers, Y. (1983). Porting Unix. In: Proceedings of UNICOM Conference, San Diego.

If you happen to have pointers to any of this, I would be happy to hear from you!

#retrocomputing #unix #MC68000 #kuleuven

50 Years of Computer Science Engineering

We reflect on the early challenges, curriculum growth, and the department's crucial role in academia and industry today.

Faculteit Ingenieurswetenschappen KU Leuven
Jun 5, 2025 at 9:42pmWeb
Show threadAlexander BochmannJun 5, 2025
@me_ That document is on the Archive: https://archive.org/details/1983-proceedings-unicom-san-diego/page/285/mode/2up
1983 UNICOM Conference : USENIX Association : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

UNICOM Conference ProceedingsJanuary 25, 1983San Diego, CA, USA

Internet Archive
Show threadAlexander BochmannJun 5, 2025
@me_ (Tough the article is relatively short and mostly gives an overview of the porting methodology.)
Show threadMichael EngelJun 5, 2025
@galaxis Ah, great, thanks for checking! I seem to have overlooked that. I sent an email to Prof. Verbaeten, but I guess the chances that he still has a copy of the code are probably rather low...
Show threadMichael EngelJun 5, 2025

@galaxis Somewhat related – an article about a Minix port to the Atari ST (with lots of technical details, however, I'm not sure if this describes the version that was available for purchase later):

Aarron Gull and Sunil K. Das, Port of the MINIX Operating System to the Atari ST, European Unix Systems User Group Newsletter, Volume 9, Number 1 Spring 1989, p. 89 ff.

https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Documentation/AUUGN/AUUGN-V10.2.pdf

#minix #MC68000 #atarist

Show threadAndy BallJun 6, 2025
@me_ @galaxis I think I had Minix on the ST but I also saw Minix filesystem support available for the MiNT kernel.
Show threadGeert UytterhoevenJun 15, 2025
@me_
Did you manage to get the code from Prof. Verbaeten or Prof. Berbers?
Despite having done my PhD at that department, and knowing the department did some XC/MC68000 work (which turned into controlling the traffic lights at the entrance of the tunnel from E40 going into Brussels, IIRC ;-) I didn't know it was Pierre and Yolande who did that work...
Show threadMichael EngelJun 15, 2025
@geert Unfortunately no reply so far, but I only contacted Prof. Verbaeten. I'll also try to get in touch with Prof. Berbers... it would be great to see this code preserved if it still exists.
Show threadcopsewoodJun 5, 2025
@me_ I used Apollo Domain OS and SunOS versions of Unix on Motorola 680x0 chip workstations from around 1986 . Did some CAD/CAM software development and later systems admin on these platforms.
Show threadJonasJun 6, 2025

@copsewood
Does Motorola VERSAdos rings a bell to you?

https://infosec.exchange/@magnetic_tape/113623839172742117
@me_

Jonas (@[email protected])

Attached: 2 images I stumbled uppon forty-seven (47) 5.25" floppy disks regarding an old school Motorola OS called VERSAdos (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VERSAdos) including a C68 C compiler for it. Sadly I don't currently have access to any hardware to dump it. Would it be of interest to either of you @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected]? I'm located in France but I'm willing to share shipping costs or cover them if they aren't insane. If one of my EU-based follower here is willing to dump them, I'm ready do donate them. I only want those to be dumped (if it's still feasible) and publicly shared.

Infosec Exchange
Show threadMichael EngelJun 6, 2025
@magnetic_tape @copsewood I know that it existed but I never used it. Bitsavers seems to have disk images of several versions: http://bitsavers.org/bits/Motorola/
Index of /bits/Motorola

Show threadcopsewoodJun 6, 2025
@magnetic_tape @me_ While we were using 5.25 and 3.5 inch floppies much on IBM-PC compatibless/BBC micros then, not so much on Apollo Domain or SunOS workstations. I do remember setting up 8mm tape cassettes for automated overnight backups on SunOS, also Kermit over serial lines to get software downloads via the JANET network which gatewayed FTP/Internet via ICL University. We had some 1/2inch yellow Ethernet cable at previous employer for our TCP/IP island, then used thinner Coax Ethernet and IBM Token Ring.
Show threadcopsewoodJun 6, 2025
@magnetic_tape @me_ I don't think I used the Versados operating system, though used many OSs in the eighties and nineties. Things really took off when Linux became usable in the mid nineties, making it possible to do some work on hardware costing a tenth as much as before. Used a CP/M variant on my Z80 Einstein at home used for word processing and a payroll freelance business. Some early game consoles loaded off audio tape in those days.
Show threadF4GRX SébastienJun 6, 2025
@me_ it must have been a real pleasure to write this port!
Show threadRutger ClaesJul 10, 2025
@me_ @bert_hubert maybe @philipdutre can help
Show threadMichael EngelJul 10, 2025
@rutgerclaes @bert_hubert @philipdutre I completely forgot to follow up on this. I received a very nice reply from Prof. Verbaeten, who also contacted his colleague Prof. Yolande Berbers (edit: not Prof. Verbauwhede, my fault...). Unfortunately, no copies of their Unix port to the 68k machine exists any more.
Show threadWouter De BorgerJul 10, 2025

@me_ @rutgerclaes @bert_hubert @philipdutre

Perhaps try contacting Jean huens, he used to (among other things) curate the computermuseum (museum.cs.kuleuven.be). He has a tendency to keep stuff around. He has retired years ago, but worth a try.

Up until about a decade ago, there used to be ancient hard drives spread throughout the building. They may still be there, containing god knows what.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jean-huens-a17131?originalSubdomain=be

Show threadCas BlaauwJul 10, 2025
@me_ I work at KU Leuven, so I can take a look if you have any physical things you'd like to have checked out. Searching the library system didn't show me anything by Pierre Verbaeten, but I did find this book and this thesis from that time period on the same topic.
Show threadMichael EngelJul 10, 2025

@casblaauw Thanks a lot for checking this out, Cas! The book and the thesis would definitely be interesting, but I would assume these are only available as hardcopy (and the second one seems to be written in Dutch, but I should be able to understand at least the basics)?

Of course, I could cover copy/scanning costs if the library offers this or perhaps it might be possible to do an interlibrary loan with our library at Uni Bamberg?

Show threadCas BlaauwJul 10, 2025
@me_ Also, the proceedings of the 1983 UNICOM conference appear to be on the Internet Archive, and it includes the paper: https://archive.org/details/1983-proceedings-unicom-san-diego/page/285/mode/2up
1983 UNICOM Conference : USENIX Association : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

UNICOM Conference ProceedingsJanuary 25, 1983San Diego, CA, USA

Internet Archive
Show threadCas BlaauwJul 10, 2025
@me_ oops, didn't see from my server that someone else had already sent you this, apologies.