OS9 login / shutdown

Jules Richardson julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk
Mon Nov 21 09:50:15 CST 2005


I've just come across my first OS9 system, and know absolutely nothing about 
OS9 other than that it's vaguely UNIX-like. Before I try hooking the hard disk 
up and seeing if it actually works, obvious questions follow:

1) I assume there's a login process. Of course I don't know any account 
details for the system; are there any tricks to breaking in as there often are 
with old UNIX systems?

2) Assuming I can't log in at this stage, is it possible to cleanly shut the 
system down? e.g. some magic keypress or login name (as there is with Apollo 
machines)

3) If I can login somehow, how do I then shut the system down properly? Is 
there a shutdown command in OS9, or is it something else entirely?


On the plus side, the interface between host and disk unit is SASI, so there's 
a chance I can do a raw backup of the drive via a modern system. On the minus 
side, the physical drive is an ST506 type via an OMTI bridge board, so I can't 
easily go from raw backup to working system without proper low-level format 
utils (which I don't have, although I'm still sorting through floppies that 
came in the same haul)

Of course all of this assumes that a) the hard drive isn't toast already and 
b) that the hard drive which came in the pile of stuff actually belongs with 
this system in the first place :)

ta

Jules





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