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From: jca@pnet01.cts.com (John C. Archambeau)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: minix on the macintosh
Message-ID: <359@crash.cts.com>
Date: 13 Sep 89 02:36:09 GMT
Sender: root@crash.cts.com
Organization: People-Net [pnet01], El Cajon CA
Lines: 30

The issue of DMA is more of a performance issue.  We all prefer a 5 speed
manual transmissionto a 4 speed (at least I do).  The idea behind DMA is to
free the CPU from performing menial I/O tasks that do NOT have to be done by
the CPU.  I know that eventually Minix will be more or less a smaller GNU and
eventually will support such things as full swapping and all of the other
bells and whistles of a full blown Unix OS.  While you don't have to have to
have DMA to use Minix currently, the fact that many of us have our hard drive
controllers going through bios_wini.c is proof of that, you are giving up a
lot by not having DMA.  It's a lot of wasted CPU time thrown out the door.  I
admit that I am an over zealous Unix person, but I do know that as the price
on more powerful chips such as the 386 go down, the reality of Minix becoming
what a lot of us want it to be will happen.  

Of course, it might also deal with the fact I have a Sun 386i sitting my desk
at work along with a SPARCstation 1 on the way.  BTW, when is the SPARC port
of Minix expected to be out?  It sounds more tempting since Toshiba is
planning on making a SPARC laptop.  7 MIPS certainly makes my 16 MHz '286 box
at home in the dust.  

Just the thought of a Unix based OS on a machine without DMA is a taboo in my
opinion.  Not having virtual memory is bad enough.  :)


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