🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <419@mks.UUCP>, wheels@mks.UUCP (Gerry Wheeler) writes:
% In article <8803060401.AA21207@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, TCORAM@UDCVAX.BITNET (maroC ddoT) writes:
%% Just how UNIX compatible is the C compiler for OS-9 with UNIX?  They say they
%% are source compatible in thier ads... Does this mean I can REALLY port C
%% stuff (forking and all) to OS-9?  Or is it just 'file' function compatible
%% with UNIX (as is most decent C compilers seem to be)?
% 
% I used the 6809 version of OS9 a while ago. Since they are multi-tasking,
% they do have techniques to spawn concurrent tasks, but as I recall, their
% names for these things was different. However, I suspect one could easily
% put together a Unix compatible library.

I haven't throughly wrung out the Minix C library, but it seems pretty
complete.  This was for the PC version, the ST should contain the same
routines.  You can flush out a library quite a bit by grabbing routines
of the net; I saw a 'getopt' go by in comp.os.minix a couple of weeks ago.

%% I seem to get the feeling that quite a few people out there waiting for MINIX
%% for the ST (it is coming in late spring) expect more of it than what it will
%% probally deliver.
% 
% Well, of course we won't know until we get it. But, as long as it is fairly
% Unix compatible and supports the midi and serial ports, I'll be happy.

I've been "playing" with the PC version of Minix for about 9 months now.
Minix supports the same set of system calls as the V7 documentation we have
for an ancient PDP-11 version here at WSC.  The PC compiler is limited to
64K instruction space, 64K data space, which means you must pay attention
to size limitations.  The 68K compiler suffers no such limitations.  Porting
code that runs on Unix *version 7* should be straightforward.

The pat answer to your serial and midi port question is, "You have the
source."  A device driver for the MIDI port should be pretty trivial, also
a good exercise in writing a simple device driver.

An interesting side-effect of the way the Minix kernel is written:
The different pieces of the kernel communicate with each other via message
passing.  The Minix file system is basically just a task running at the
kernel level that accepts and handles requests to read/write disk-type
devices.  With this in mind, it should be pretty straight forward to 
develop a network for Minix using the MIDI ports.  BTW, the MIDI hardware
on the ST can be driven at 500 Kbps without modification.  I don't know
what the interrupt overhead would be at that kind of speed, though :-).

%% MINIX is great
%% for experimenting and playing with, but it will probally never become the
%% standard multitasking OS for the ST that everyone is looking for.
% 
% As I mentioned, OS9 is the multi-tasking system of choice on the Coco, but
% I think the ST version is too expensive. The $150 personal version doesn't
% include the C compiler. To get that you have to go to the $600 Professional
% version. I wish they would offer a lower cost version without Basic09 but
% with the C compiler.

Minix is *not* a supported system; it was intended for learning about how
operating systems work.  Of course, this was true of Unix for the first 7 or
8 years of it's existence, and it's far from a commercial failure now.  Unix
is not the be-all, end-all of operating systems, but it is a good
general-purpose time sharing system.  I think Minix could become a good,
general-purpose multi-tasking system for the Atari ST, Amiga, and perhaps
the Mac, if the 68K/Minix community wants to make it so.  We'll see.  I'm
not going to stake my life or livelihood on it, but I am planning to invest
a fair amount of my spare time into it.

% As for the hacking of Minix, well I suspect one of the first things people
% will try is to get a windowing front end for it. I hope that we'll be able
% to make calls to the line A routines in ROM when Minix is booted.

I hope this is so, too.  It would be especially nice if we could have
windowing system AND binary compatibility for Minix on the ST, Amiga,
and perhaps even the Mac.  THAT might be a system developers would be
interested in, imagine the market potential!
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