Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!samsung!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!attctc!chasm From: chasm@attctc.Dallas.TX.US (Charles Marslett) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Re: dosread.c again Summary: You are using Minix like DOS or you are DAFT! Keywords: minix, useful Message-ID: <9923@attctc.Dallas.TX.US> Date: 29 Oct 89 04:37:52 GMT References: <3717@ast.cs.vu.nl> <3a18.2536ede8@ibmpcug.co.uk> <3721@ast.cs.vu.nl> <1989Oct27.000935.8342@comp.vuw.ac.nz> Organization: The Unix(R) Connection, Dallas, Texas Lines: 73 In article <1989Oct27.000935.8342@comp.vuw.ac.nz>, cs304pal@rata.vuw.ac.nz (Lloyd Parkes) writes: > In article <9830@attctc.Dallas.TX.US> chasm@attctc.Dallas.TX.US (Charles Marslett) writes: > >In article <6627@ficc.uu.net>, peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) writes: > > >Minix is hardly useful as a programming environment (for example, it is not > >even on my hard disk now, Xenix has displaced it, but DOS is always there, > >because I cannot work without it -- My MINIX kernel is, of course, compiled > >under DOS). DRDOS has most of the drawbacks of MSDOS, and a few extra. > > Minix, is my only development environment, DOS is marginally useful for > writing small assembler programs, but for a real program, I would write it > under Minix. I have 2-3 (sometimes 4) minix partitions on my hard drives, > and my boot sector asks me which OS to boot, needles to say I choose minix. Actually I find exactly the reverse to be true: the atrocious syntax of the Intel/Microsoft assembly language make minix's assembly language a breath of fresh air (I even prefer the archaic AT&T syntax used by Interactive Unix). But real programs (those that are modification of other people's code or that have taken me more than 6 months to write) nearly always take more resources than minix provides. Minix C is not really very close to ANSI (and is not really K&R either), and will not compile about 1/3 of the code I throw at it. Further it doesn't even accept 64K code + 64K data. I am looking forward to bringing up the 286-protected mode kernel, but I am still limited by the size of the program units it permits. > Minix is a God send, now I can write hardware intensive code in C, under > DOS you are stuck with assembler. Unless of course, you are brave enough to > fix the commercial C compiler's libraries, and even then, you don't have > the source for those. Either I do not understand what you are saying, or you are treading very thin ice: under any multitasking environment hardware code is almost certain to crash the file system regularly (unless, of course you never write buggy code ;^). DOS is characterized by a single thread of execution, so even disk I/O is reasonably likely to damage only the partition being written to or read from. Neither "real" Unix or minix has that blessing (or curse, if you happen to like multitasking every once in a while!). Or you can force minix (but probably not AT&T's Unix) to run in a mode very similar to MSDOS -- but why? DOS really does a very effective job of allowing real work to be done, and still absolutely prohibiting even a near semblance of multitasking (even Desqview and Windows are rather remote semblances of multitasking). > In short, as far as my computer is concerned Minix is the best thing since > sliced bread. I won't disagree, but except for a few small programs I still have to compile my code under DOS (even diff -- gnu version -- will not compile in 64K). I once did a lot of programming of Z80s, and the need to do useful work resulted in lots of assembly code tied togather by C mainline code. Minix, today, still has the same constraints (unless you buy an ST). > Lloyd (DOS gets up my nose) > Quick, send your money to cs304pal@rata.vuw.ac.nz now! > > If you think anyone believes what I have just said, > then you must be daft in the head! (Funny, my mother said I was a bit daft thirty years ago, and that was before I fell in love with minix, C or graphics . . .) =============================================================================== "Those who would sacrifice ** Charles Marslett liberty for security, ** STB Systems, Inc. <-- apply all std. disclaimers deserve neither." ** Wordmark Systems <-- that's just me -- Benjamin Franklin ** chasm\@attctc.dallas.tx.us ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Note: the disclaimer has nothing to do with this discussion: I just like pithy quotes!