Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ncar!boulder!ccncsu!grieg.CS.ColoState.Edu!root From: root@grieg.CS.ColoState.Edu (the root) Newsgroups: comp.os.minix Subject: Re: Important new program: cleanit.c Keywords: floppy-only, minimum configuration Message-ID: <2801@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU> Date: 6 Oct 89 15:52:06 GMT References: <3492@ast.cs.vu.nl> <3540@ast.cs.vu.nl> Sender: news@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU Reply-To: bentson@grieg.CS.ColoState.Edu.UUCP (Randolph Bentson) Organization: Computer Science Department, Colorado State University Lines: 17 In article <3540@ast.cs.vu.nl> ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) writes: >In article broman@nosc.mil writes: >>It's too bad that floppy-only systems seem to be excluded from any of this >>action, because the big compressed archive probably won't fit on a floppy. >While I will continue to make >boot diskettes etc to actually come up on floppies, I think that the number >of floppy-only users is rapidly decreasing, as hard disks keep coming down >in price. I applaud your plans to continue building floppy bootable versions of Minix. I suspect that there are several Minix user communities: the personal computer owner who has invested in hard-disks, the student on a floppy-only personal computer studying operating systems, and owners of lap-top computers. In the former group, it's likely that a department has equipped a lab with the minimum cost system (and floppies are still cheaper than hard disks). In the last group, hard disks strongly limit how long you can be away from a power source.