🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <761@nixpbe.UUCP> josef@peun11.uucp (Moellers) writes:
>I agree, nobody with a grain of sense would design a multi-user
>UNIX-machine with e.g. an Z80 but to use a 32532 as a controller in an
>8pin matrix printer would be overkill!

Interestingly, the Morrow Decision 1 computer (S-100 Z-80A based) of a few
years ago ran Micronix, a port of Unix version 7.  It actually worked!  My
roommate had one.  With 1 user it wasn't too bad, but more than one loaded
it pretty good.  He didn't have enough memory for it.  It was a segment
swapping OS, not demand paged virtual.  The CPU card had a hardware MMU
that mapped 4K pages and added protection to accomplish the magic.  They
had a CP/M emulator that ran under Micronix so you could run WordStar et. al.
from the shell.

Boy, I'd never want to have to design one of these puppies!  As a Unix
engine, though, it was better than Coherent for PC's -- the MMU offered
intertask protection which Coherent didn't have.  The MD1 was
crash-proof, but the PC was better for C programming as it had 16-bit
ops.  

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