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Sourcecode for SunOS applications

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audiocrush

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Jul 21, 2023
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Hi there!

I was wondering if anybody on this forum might know about a repository of some sort that contains software code that is/was ported for compiling on a sparc System running SunOS4.X

I got my first Sparcstation 20 a couple of months ago but I struggle to find software that I can run on it.

I also have basically 0 experience in programming C/C++ but I'm willing to learn. I found the documentation of the builtin C compiler but there just doesn't seem to be a any code around anymore that does compile on that machine.

Any hints are greatly appreciated

Greetings

Audiocrush
 
What kind of software are you looking for? There are a few places to find dev type tools for SunOS 4.x but I've not found many applications.
 
I'm assuming that you're looking for the kinds of random PD/FOSS software that we all used to build when setting up SunOS 4 systems out of the box at a new site.

Have a look under http://ftp.gnu.org/pub/old-gnu, you should be able to find versions of packages that were released while support for SunOS 4 was still common.

These two items from archive.org might be interesting:
* https://archive.org/details/netgems91
A Sterling Software CD image that includes comp.sources.sun, comp.sources.unix, GNU and X11R5...

* https://archive.org/details/comp.sources.unix
A ZIP archive of many volumes of comp.sources.unix postings. Includes things like tcsh, jove, lsof, mush, trn, uemacs, top, etc.

Also, there was a recent exchange about this on the sunhelp.org "rescue" mailing list. I'll risk the wrath of Ron Pool by quoting his contribution to the thread "Stupid question time...":
Code: 
There are still some SunOS 4 binaries on the net. I know of these:

http://www.synack.net/~bbraun/sunos4/

gopher://gopher.floodgap.com/1/archive/sunos-4-solbourne-os-mp
If you don't have a gopher client, view that at https://gopherproxy.meulie.net/gopher.floodgap.com/1/archive/sunos-4-solbourne-os-mp

https://archive.org/details/X11R5_GNU_CD-ROM_Walnut_Creek_December_1992
I think this has SunOS 4.1.3 binaries.  It certainly has source for a tons of GNU stuff (including gcc, emacs, ghostscript) and X11R5 demos and games.

Also, you can still buy the book "Programming with GNU Software: Tools from Cygnus Support".  Book includes a CD-ROM that contains binaries for several popular UNIX systems, including Sun SPARC4 running SunOS 4.1.3, Sun SPARC4 running Solaris 2.4, HP 9000/700 running HPUX, IBM RS/6000 running AIX 3, SGI Iris/Indigo running Irix 5.3, and Alpha running Digital UNIX. Complete source code and scripts for configuration, building, and installation are also included.  Tools on the CD-ROM include GNU Emacs, gcc, GNU libraries, gdb, RCS, GNU make.  I don't know what version of gcc, emacs, etc are on the CD-ROM.
Right now, Amazon has 25 used and new copies still available and other places like Abe Books and Thriftbooks probably have copies.  Likely many of the used copies are missing the CD-ROM, so watch out for that.
 
Was Doom ever ported to SunOS 4 ? I'm guessing it would be viable. Back in the early 90s I had a 486DX2 which was bleeding edge at the time, as well as a Sparcstation 2. I remember running simulation software written in C and compiling it for both platforms at the time. The Sparcstation 2 was 2-3 times faster than the 486DX2, although given this was Windows 3 era and compiling 32 bit on a PC was still a bit experimental. I was using Zortec C++ at the time.
 
It wouldn't surprise me if the SPARC beats out the 486 in terms of raw grunt, but it is worth remembering that the 486 is gonna be running it on nearly-bare metal under MS-DOS, while the Sun has a whole multitasking OS going on (and X11 imposes its own bottlenecks; does SunOS offer any kind of straight framebuffer mode? I've never looked.)

In any case, it'd be interesting to try!
 
commodorejohn said:
It wouldn't surprise me if the SPARC beats out the 486 in terms of raw grunt, but it is worth remembering that the 486 is gonna be running it on nearly-bare metal under MS-DOS, while the Sun has a whole multitasking OS going on (and X11 imposes its own bottlenecks; does SunOS offer any kind of straight framebuffer mode? I've never looked.)

In any case, it'd be interesting to try!
Click to expand...
There's direct access to the framebuffer, at least on my Solbourne with OS/MP. My S3000 is only b/w but that might be a fun limitation to work around.
 
It would be awesome to get this running in SunView. You can access framebuffer IIRC - and there are some examples 'sphere drawing' - in the sunview demos with source code. SunView was very light weight compared to X11 but quite limited.
 
Thanks guys, especially to @smj
I compiled bash for my SunOS 4.1.3 Install and suddenly all the stuff that failed to compile before works flawlessly 😂
Maybe that was my problem all along.

Also those old usenet archives seem to be a real treasure trove in terms of old games.
Now I can't wait for the weather to go bad again so that I have an excuse to descend into the basement funland of old crap 😄
 
A lot of the old usenet articles included source listings, as people used to just drop code into the chat. All Sun machines with 4.1 had a c compiler available in those days.
 
I developed early versions of the 3D software, RenderWare, on SS2 and 486 and I recall SS2 being the faster renderer. Possibly the compilers were just thyat much better than PC at the time - 1991-ish.
 
I had a 486DX2 at the same time as a SS2 and they were both bleeding edge machines. The SS2 was consistently twice as fast as the 486, and the graphics were far better 1152x900x256 versus 800x600x16. Having said that there was a big difference in price too :)
 
Just a thought, but you may find that if you're having difficulties building modern software with the Sun C compiler, using Gnu CC might help.

Another thing to consider is running NetBSD on the system. It feels a lot like SunOS 4.x, but of course has all the modern stuff that's happened since SunOS 4.x was dropped.
 
I worked for IBM, and a group wanted to release some software for Solaris that was written for AIX. The only problem is the code was written in an internal language for PL/X. And there was no PL/X compiler for Sparc. So, they commissioned the PL/X group to create a compiler called PL/X-ETC, that ran on AIX. This compiler, instead of emitting Assembly Language, emitted "C". The code that was generated was almost impossible to read. But it worked. The code was then compiled for the target. I used this compiler to generate some test code to run on a zLinux machine. The original code ran on Windows and x86-linux.
 
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