Date   : Tue, 07 Mar 2006 14:45:19 +0000
From   : Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk@...>
Subject: Panos (Was: Re: Warning: Sad case on list!)

Fragula wrote:
> Jules Richardson wrote:
> 
>  > Releases 10 and 13 here according to the shipping boxes - I don't think
>> I can tell if the contents match the cardboard without looking at disk
>> contents.
> Err.. You could make omniflop images, and mail them to me, and I could
> look for you? ;D

Heh heh... r13 is still shrinkwrapped too, so I'm tempted to leave it that way 
until there's a desperate need to use r13 over one of the earlier releases for 
some reason :-)

And JGH mentioned that he has r12 online anyway, so we're probably covered in 
terms of PanOS goodness right now. At least I think it was JGH - my brain's 
full after so many messages the last few days!

Don't think I ever got omniflop to work - my current favourite is Dave 
Dunfield's Imagedisk as the prog does some nice analysis of disk structure 
that lots of other archivers don't tend to do.

>> I've also got various ex-Acorn-employee floppies marked as PanOS source
>> code (OS, compilers etc.) plus design docs - I keep on getting
>> sidetracked (dammit) so haven't been able to investigate those yet!
> Oh my! <fx: faints>

:)  That's what really interests me about Acorn collecting these days - 
unearthing random odds and ends like that; the detective work's fun, plus I 
don't like seeing this stuff binned as it's not the sort of thing most 
collectors go for. I think I prefer it to hardware collecting even as it takes 
up less space! (well, sort of - made a list of my Acorn docs the other day and 
there were more than 400 of the darn things)

Oh, anyone know if there's a relationship between "Tiny Kernel" and PanOS? 
I've found some (Acorn internal) documentation relating to the former in the 
context of 32016 copros and I'm pondering whether it's the predecessor to 
PanOS. TK (running on a 32016) seems to provide all the expected hooks for 
accessing I/O devices on the beeb side of things, so it'd seem strange if 
Acorn developed both PanOS [1] and TK.

[1] 'Panos' in most Acorn docs it seems, although that goes against it being 
Pandora Operating System, so I tend to capitalise the OS bit...

Date on the doc I have is Feb 1984, which must have been about the same time 
that PanOS was being developed given that the ACW was reviewed mid-1985. 
Authored by D. R. Lamkin, if anyone knows of them...

cheers

Jules