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Bibliography & Sources

This page is the master source list behind grimoire-amix. It splits into primary sources (the Ditto driver paper, the three install floppies we analyse locally, the modern driver + cross-toolchain repos, AT&T's SVR4 documentation, and the scanned Commodore manuals on archive.org) and community / reference sources (amigaunix.com, encyclopedias, blogs, Usenet, emulator issue trackers, and the emulator docs). Every docs/ page ends with its own ## Sources list citing the specific items below; this page is where those citations resolve.

The hierarchy we apply everywhere, per the contributor contract: primary manuals / the Ditto driver paper / the real disk images and repo source > archived Usenet (comp.unix.amiga) > forum lore. Confidence tags (✅ verified, 🟡 community-reported, 🔴 unverified/disputed) are carried from the research brief into every page; this page is mostly a catalogue, so it is lightly tagged.

Licensing note (read before downloading anything). ✅ The Amix distribution, the boot/root/patch floppy images, the hardfiles, tape images, and the scanned manuals are Commodore material. On 2026-09-23, following the approval of Mike Battilana (CEO, Amiga Corporation — Saku event 2026-09-19, email 2026-09-23), the Amix release restriction is lifted: the Commodore Amiga binaries may be distributed and Amiga UNIX released to the public (AGENTS.md §5). History: until 2026-09-23 this project treated them as abandonware, not licensed for redistribution. We still never commit them to this repository (they are .gitignored; it is a text knowledge hub). We refer to them by name and checksum and point you at amigaunix.com and archive.org to obtain them yourself. All tooling in this repo operates on user-supplied images.

Primary sources

These are the top of the source-of-truth hierarchy. When a primary source and forum lore disagree, the primary source wins.

The Ditto driver paper

  • Michael Ditto, Writing Amix Device Drivers — presented at the 1990 European Amiga Developer's Conference. ✅ This is the authoritative driver specification, written by the Amix porter himself ("Unix Systems Software Architect" at Commodore, 1988–1991). It grounds the driver model, the char-driver walkthrough, and the STREAMS-driver walkthrough.
  • Citation caveat ✅: cite it as the 1990 European Amiga Developer's Conference — the page headers in the PDF read exactly that. The local PDF filename says "North American," which is inaccurate; do not propagate it.
  • Edition caveat ✅: the scan has 22 unique pages; pages 23–44 are a duplicate re-scan of the same content. The par(7A) man page (the worked char-driver example) is on p. 22. Cite specific page numbers from the first 22-page run (e.g. "Ditto paper p. 22").
  • Held locally as sources/pdf/Writing Amix Device Drivers …(2).pdf. Not redistributable — obtain via amigaunix.com / archive.org. SHA-256 in sources/CHECKSUMS.txt.

The three install floppies (our local analysis)

The differentiator of this project: we inspect the real Amix 2.1 install media with tools/inspect-adf.sh <image> and ground the boot-disk anatomy pages on byte-level findings rather than lore. All three are proprietary, gitignored, and obtained by the reader — checksums live in sources/CHECKSUMS.txt.

Image (gitignored) What it is Grounds
amix_21_boot.adf ✅ AmigaDOS OFS bootblock + Amix secondary bootstrap + compressed install kernel anatomy-boot-adf
amix_21_root.adf ✅ s5 miniroot: installer ELF (m68k) binaries + install shell scripts anatomy-root-adf, install walkthrough
amix_21_patch.adf ✅ Self-extracting "Patch Disks 1 & 2" for Amix SVR4 2.1 (→ kernel 2.1c) anatomy-patch-adf

Cite local analysis in the form "amix_21_root.adf analysis via tools/inspect-adf.sh" so any reader can reproduce the finding against their own copy. The deeper unpack of the root miniroot uses tools/unpack-root.sh.

The modern Amix repositories (drivers, X11/Mesa ports, cross-toolchain)

These are recent, AI-assisted hobby projects — drivers, an X11R6.3 + Mesa graphics stack, and a Linux cross-toolchain — targeting Amix 2.1 on an Amiga 3000 / 68030. ✅ Their READMEs and source ground the driver case studies and much of the driver model. All are source-only or overlay-only (building them needs a licensed Amix install and headers; the overlays fetch + SHA-256-verify their upstream X11/Mesa sources rather than committing them).

Repository What it is Case study
https://github.com/asokero/va2000-amix ✅ Char framebuffer driver for the MNT VA2000 RTG card (/dev/va2000, char major 68) va2000
https://github.com/asokero/xrtg-amix ✅ X11R5 server (Xrtg) for the VA2000 (needs the va2000 driver) xrtg
https://github.com/asokero/lszorro-amix ✅ Userspace lspci-style Zorro II scanner lszorro
https://github.com/isoriano1968/hydra-amix ✅ STREAMS/DLPI network driver for the Hydra AmigaNet card (cdevsw slot 47, hya); now also carries a slice of the Amix /usr/sys kernel + boot source tree. 2026-06: verified on real hardware (ARP + ICMP ping) — "believed to be the first working Amix net driver for the card" 🟡 hydra
https://github.com/isoriano1968/gcc-cross-amix ✅ Linux-hosted cross-toolchain bootstrap for m68k-cbm-sysv4 (Makefile + wrapper; binutils 2.8.1 + GCC 2.7.2.3; user-supplied Amix sysroot). C works (a dynamically-linked Amix exe runs on real hardware); C++ WIP 🟡 toolchain
https://github.com/isoriano1968/zz9000-amix ✅ Kernel framebuffer driver for the MNT ZZ9000 (Zorro II product 3; /dev/zz9000, char major 49) with mode setting, mmap, and a late-activated ANSI framebuffer console (2026-07) zz9000
https://github.com/isoriano1968/x11r6.3-amix ✅ X11R6.3 port (Xzz9000 server over /dev/zz9000); card-generic hw/amix/rtg/ DDX layer; documents the native Amix shared-library ABI (ld -G -h + .sa stubs) (2026-07) x11r6.3
https://github.com/isoriano1968/mesa-amix ✅ Mesa 3.1 software-rendering bootstrap (Xlib driver against Xzz9000; static GL/GLU/glut first, no server-side GLX) (2026-07) mesa
https://github.com/vjouppi/hydra 🟡 Ville Jouppi's AmigaOS Hydra reverse-engineering (register offsets, board schematics); cited by the hydra-amix README hydra

🟡 These repos exist and are the centrepiece examples; claims that the asokero/isoriano1968 handles do not exist or do only AmigaOS work are wrong. 🟢 The modern drivers build natively on the box (Hydra: make/make force with a native GCC 2.7.2.3 — the "amigaunix.com pkg" attribution is unsourced 🔴; a stock box has GNU GCC 1.40.5 ✅). As of 2026-06 a public, reproducible cross-toolchain also exists — isoriano1968/gcc-cross-amix, m68k-cbm-sysv4-gcc — closing the earlier "no public cross recipe" gap ✅; see the toolchain page.

The amigaux project's repositories (as of 2026-10-29)

On 2026-10-28/29 the amigaux project moved its own code into a GitHub organisation, amigaux, around one monorepo ✅. What is public, and where:

Repository What it is Tag
amigaux/amix The monorepo that is to build the whole system (MIT; marked work in progress). Today it holds kernel/dlm (the loadable-module loader, core, kbootset, ABI kit and spec) and kernel/modules (monsw, ramdisk) with their history kept; toolchain/ (both cross compilers pinned by commit, a reproducible build container); system/ (the sha256 manifest of the Commodore system files); CI (a privacy check and the host tests). Other directories hold only a README until their project moves in ✅
amigaux/amix-040-060-port The organisation's fork of Antti Sokero's 68040/68060 port; its k46-module branch carries the module-kernel chain, and amigaux/amix pins a commit of it (kernel/port/port.pin) ✅
amigaux/amix-system The Commodore AMIX 2.1/2.1c system files, public since 2026-10-30: both stock kernels (kernels/), the installed 2.1c /usr tree at 2.1p2a with the relink kit and the kernel and driver sources under usr/sys, the stock /etc (etc/, with etc.md for what git cannot hold), and the three retail 2.1 floppies (floppies/2.1/). Unchanged by the project; amigaux/amix lists its contents by sha256 ✅
jusii/gcc-cross-amix The fork of isoriano1968/gcc-cross-amix that amigaux/amix pins for kernel space ✅
asokero/gcc14-cross-amix Antti Sokero's GCC 14 cross compiler, the project's userland compiler (toolchain) ✅
jusii/Z3660-amix The project's fork of the Z3660 firmware (shanshe/Z3660) ✅
hmlio/amix-gayle-ide, isoriano1968/zz9000-amix, isoriano1968/paula-amix, reinauer/ODFileSystem Collaborators' projects (Gayle IDE; ZZ9000/Z3660 RTG; Paula audio; the CD filesystem cdfs is ported from) — they stay their authors' repositories, and the project works on forks that amigaux/amix is to pin by commit ✅

The project's own driver and package repositories (amix-a4091, amix-z3660scsi, amix-z3660net, amix-packagemanager, amix-packages, under jusii/ on GitHub) are to move into amigaux/amix one at a time with their history; until each does, the jusii/ repository is the public one, and its public copy can lag the work described on this site 🔴 (planned). The install-media builder, Installer-NG (amix-installng), has not been public since 2026-11-05; it is to move into amigaux/amix under media/ before 1.1, and its test bench stays private 🔴 (planned). The package repository is pkg.amigaux.org, and the release site is amigaux.org ✅.

🔴 Do not propagate: the hydra-amix README states Amix was "later sold by Haage & Partner." This conflicts with the sourced history (Commodore; support ended 1993, bankruptcy 1994 — H&P is the AmigaOS-3.5/3.9 era, unrelated). Treat it as upstream lore, not fact. See versions.

AT&T SVR4 documentation

Because Amix is "essentially identical to System V Release 4," the generic AT&T SVR4 manuals are authoritative for everything the Ditto paper does not cover specifically. ✅

  • AT&T SVR4 DDI/DKI Reference Manual (Device Driver Interface / Driver–Kernel Interface) — the reference for kernel APIs Amix drivers call (copyin/copyout, uiomove, sleep/wakeup, timeout/untimeout, the cdevsw/bdevsw switch structures, and so on).
  • AT&T SVR4 Streams Programmer's Guide and Network Programmer's Guide — the references for STREAMS and TLI, which ground the STREAMS-driver walkthrough and networking.
  • Books the Ditto paper cites as background: Egan & Teixeira, Writing a UNIX Device Driver (Wiley, 1988); Bach, The Design of the UNIX Operating System (1986); Kernighan & Pike, The UNIX Programming Environment (1984).
  • 🔴 No Amix-specific Programmer's Guide or Driver Reference has been found archived. Use the generic SVR4 DDI/DKI plus the Ditto paper; do not cite an "Amix Driver Reference" that does not exist.

Scanned Commodore manuals (archive.org)

✅ The official end-user manuals, scanned and hosted on the Internet Archive (proprietary; view/download from archive.org, do not redistribute through this repo):

Community & reference sources

These are credible but, per the hierarchy, rank below the primary sources. Most claims grounded only here carry a 🟡 tag in the docs.

amigaunix.com (the authoritative community resource)

amigaunix.com is a DokuWiki and the most authoritative community resource for end-user, historical, and install-media material. grimoire-amix cross-links to it rather than duplicating it — we go deeper on development. The pages we cite:

🟡 Where amigaunix.com conflicts with a less authoritative community source — for example the X11R4-vs-R5 "default" question — we follow amigaunix.com (it says R4 is the default) and flag the conflict. See X11 and the desktop.

Encyclopedias

🔴 Some wiki pages assert an "Amix 2.2" release and a "2.1c, 1994" date. Both are almost certainly wrong: 2.2 does not appear in any primary source (likely confusion with kernel 2.1c), and support ended in 1993. See the versions reference.

Articles & blogs

Usenet & forums (archived)

Per the hierarchy, archived comp.unix.amiga ranks above general forum lore.

  • comp.unix.amiga — the period Usenet group, via Google Groups and narkive archives 🟡 (tape-free install procedures, networking workarounds, contemporary user reports).
  • English Amiga Board (EAB) threads — 🟡 (the 3B2-codebase discussion, hardware lore).

Community software (third-party)

Emulator issue trackers & documentation

These ground the getting-started / emulation pages.

  • WinUAE documentation — the reference emulation target; MMU emulation since 2.6.0 (2013). ✅ that MMU/FPU on and JIT off are required; several config values are 🟡. See emulation under WinUAE.
  • FS-UAE documentation — verified by amigaunix.com against FS-UAE 3.1.66 🟡. See emulation under FS-UAE.
  • Amiberry issue #1376 — https://github.com/BlitterStudio/amiberry/issues/1376 — request to add A3000 SCSI controller + tape support for Amix; implemented in Amiberry 8.x (the 8.1.6 GUI mounts a disk at A3000 SCSI ID 6 and a tape at ID 4), so Amiberry now both installs and runs Amix ✅. See emulation under Amiberry.

The llms.txt convention

This repository follows the llms.txt convention — a root-level, curated, Markdown index of the site intended for LLM consumption, proposed by Jeremy Howard (Answer.AI), September 2024 (https://llmstxt.org/). ✅ In this repo:

  • llms.txt (repo root) is the curated LLM index; keep it in sync when you add, rename, or move a page.
  • llms-full.txt is the concatenated full corpus, regenerated by tools/gen-llms-full.sh after content changes.

See writing for LLMs for how this shapes page structure.

How to cite these sources on a page

Each docs/ page ends with a ## Sources list pointing at the specific items above. Use these forms so a reader (human or agent) can resolve and reproduce them:

  • Ditto paper — Ditto paper p. N (page from the first 22-page run; e.g. Ditto paper p. 22).
  • Local image analysis — amix_21_root.adf analysis via tools/inspect-adf.sh (and tools/unpack-root.sh for the deeper miniroot unpack).
  • Repos — the full GitHub URL (e.g. https://github.com/asokero/va2000-amix).
  • Brief — research brief §N (sources/research-brief.md) for the internal grounding section.
  • Community — the full URL (amigaunix.com page, Wikipedia, blog, EAB/Usenet, emulator issue).

See also

Sources