Date   : Wed, 24 Aug 2011 22:04:06 GMT
From   : jgh@... (J.G.Harston)
Subject: Tube ROM

Rick Murray wrote:
> Here's a question then - was there ever something non-Beeby (and not
> FileServer) that ran on a Beeb+CoPro combo? I'd imagine you might be
> able to run some sort of baby Unix sort of arrangement on it? You know,

With the Z80 CoPro you can run CPM

With the 32016 CoPro you can run PanOS which is a sort-of
unix-alike.

With the A500 ARM CoPro you can run (originally) Arthur and RISC
OS. As the A500 has it's own I/O you can set how much of the BBC
host it actually uses (eg using BBC for disk and keyboard and A500
VIDC for display is a bit groovey +).

With the Cumana Unicorn 68000 systems you can run real 68K unix.
The Cumana systems don't use the Tube API, the Tube hardware
interface or the Tube hardware, but its own processor-to-processor
communication protocol.

With the Dragon and similar 6809 CoPro systems you can run OS-9 and
Flex. Again, the extant 6809 CoPro designs don't use the Tube API,
interface or hardware, but it would be easy enough to write a
client to implment the API.

See http://mdfs.net/tube for various info.

Rick Murray wrote:
> J.G.Harston wrote:
> > Initial builds of RISC OS had modules to allow it to act as both a
> > Tube client and a Tube host!
> 
> Do these modules and info on the associated hardware still exist?

http://mdfs.net/Misc/Source/OSLib is some of them, originally from
the RISC OS Open site in the source balls.

-- 
J.G.Harston - jgh@...      - mdfs.net/jgh
RISC OS Choices System - http://mdfs.net/Software/RISCOS