LUnix Utility & Application Support

This page is dedicated to LUnix support. LUnix is a multitasking OS for C64 by Daniel Dallman from Germany. Currently the LUnix makes it possible to execute multiple applications concurrently, share the sources by other C64's on its special network, connect to the internet with its TCP/IP stack, and make use of the VDC of your C128.

But the LUnix needs application support. Especially the productivity software. Thus, one can take this text as an invitement for writing LUnix applications. There is one more good news also. Small-C port by Ivan Curtis will make it programming for LUnix easier than ever.

The applications below, written mostly by a ML-monitor or with lupo/luna by Daniell Dallman. They are categorized with their purpose:


Keyboard Management

AT Keyboard Driver for LUnix : This simple atkeyb command makes it possible to use an AT-keyboard with your commie under the LUnix OS. I included a small atkeyb document and uuencoded atkeyb either.

AT Keyboard Test Routines : A step to use an AT keyboard. After building the interface using this keyboard hooking document, you can test it with this keybchk LUnix command, or with the basic keybcheck program. They are uuencoded either: keybchk.uue or keyb-check.uue


Screen Management

80 COLUMNS VIC DRIVER FOR LUNIX : This flicktty command for LUnix makes possible to use 80 columns wide text screens. As stated in the flicktty document it's incredibly fast. It can scroll 95 lines in a second smoothly and actual throughput of flicktty is 5250 characters per second. It has the drawbacks of flickering but has the advantages of speed and memory. It uses 3328 bytes of VIC memory, and together with its driver code it allocates only 5120 bytes of memory. It is not perfect for the time being, but I'm improving it. You can find its uuencoded version here.

VDCTTY : This command reads characters from its pipe input and prints them to the VDC 80 column screen of C128. If you have a C128 you will find vdctty very useful. You can get documentation for vdctty and for your convinience uuencoded version either.


Text Editing & Conversion

ED : ED is a line-based text editor for C64. I currently supplied the LUnix version of ED for now. Additional information about it relies in the ED documentation for LUnix . Its version is 0.1alpha, so it is not complete. What to do for the other versions is in the this to-do list . There is also a quick reference of ED in petscii . And finally the uuencoded ED and uuencoded petscii ED manual is here.

CONVERSION : Here lays two of my four conversion pipe-commands for LUnix. For petscii to ascii-lf conversion you can make use of the cbm2unix. And for ascii-lf to petscii transfer unix2cbm is what you need. There is also a documentation for conversion here. If you want, these are the uuencoded versions: cbm2unix.uue, and unix2cbm.uue.

UNIX-DOS CONVERSION : These two new LUnix commands are used to convert ascii-lf, and ascii-cr/lf type text files into each other. dos2unix transfers the DOS type text file into UNIX type file. And unix2dos does just the opposite. Their usage is similar to cbm2unix and unix2cbm below. For those doesn't like binaries here is the uuencoded version of them: dos2unix.uue , unix2dos.uue


Speed Management

FAST SEEK TIME : This little disk "&" utility code makes the 1541/71 fast when moving to another track. The executable file included here is for the commodore basic. As stated in the instructions for fasthead utility , you simply load the fasthead basic program, and run it. The program creates a "USR" type file named "&fasthead" in your current disk. You can use this utility from almost all of the operating systems available for CBM. You can get the uuencoded version and basic program in ascii here.

FASTLUNIX : Here I presented four commands for managing different CPU speeds. They are documented as speed management for lunix. The binaries of them are: fast128 , slow128 , fast , and slow . I included uuencoded versions also: fast128.uue , slow128.uue , fast.uue , and slow.uue . I hope you find them useful.

MIPS : New version: This program measures the speed of a C64 in MIPS. It is documented here. And here is the executable LUNIX version. With its uuencoded version of mips for LUNIX.


Others

AUTOBOOTING THE LUNIX : This basic program of autobooter for LUnix v0.1p4 makes your LUnix disk autobootable if you have a C128. So that, after a power up, Lunix will be loaded and executed automatically into C64 mode of C128. Here is the required documentation and the uuencoded basic file and ascii basic file to prepare a LUnix boot disk.

The Collection of My LUnix Applications : Here, if you retrieve this lunif.tar.gz packed file and unpack it with proper utilities you get my LUnix commands and applications I have done so far. A brief list of its contents also may give you some information about it.

My LUnix TO-DO List is here.

Back to my commodore homepage.

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Last update: July 24, 1997

Ilker Ficicilar

Physics Department - Middle East Technical University
Ankara - Turkey
filker@newton.physics.metu.edu.tr
c068214@narwhal.cc.metu.edu.tr