Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cica!iuvax!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!uxh.cso.uiuc.edu!archetyp
From: archetyp@uxh.cso.uiuc.edu (Joseph R Pickert)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: MINIX for the Macintosh
Message-ID: <1989Nov20.232801.23983@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: 20 Nov 89 23:28:01 GMT
References: <2326@draken.nada.kth.se>
Sender: news@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (News)
Reply-To: archetyp@uxh.cso.uiuc.edu.UUCP (Joseph R Pickert)
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Lines: 71

> ianf@nada.kth.se writes:
> ...motivation for making it into a Macintosh application instead of
> an alternative to the Mac OS and the Finder.

Well, there were several reasons for this.  The most important is that
Apple is pretty tight-lipped about how their hardware operates. I
decided up front that a standalone operating system for the
Macintosh would be virtually impossible without the cooperation of Apple
or the investment of an enormous amount of time.  Apple's cooperation
was not very likely, especially at the level I would need. And I am
only one person, so time was at a premium.  So I decided on this approach.
Like most decisions, this one has had its disadvantages as well as its
advantages.  In retrospect, I would say that the advantages have far
outweighed the disadvantages, and that having UNIX and my Macintosh
programs run simultaneously is a very desirable thing for me.

> 1 Does the Minix distribution include an Emacs-clone or similar
I doubt an emacs person would consider the editor that comes with
MINIX to be a clone, but I'm not really an emacs user, so I guess the
answer is I don't know.

> 2 Is microEmacs 3.10 compatible with it
Yes, I have compiled and used microEmacs under MacMINIX (I think it
was 3.10, but I'm not sure).

Also, an awful lot of vanilla UNIX programs are compatible with
MacMINIX.  More than I think a lot of people would guess. And when I
say  compatible, I mean I did not have to modify the source beyond
setting up the configuration information.  This includes most of
the GNU stuff (C, C++, bawk, bison, etc) and a fair amount of
stuff I have pulled from the net (ash, flex, smail, etc.)

> 3 Is there now a mail package  (there was none last time I asked)
Yes, uupc and a mail program have been posted in comp.os.minix.
These run just fine under MacMINIX.

> 4 Has someone actually implemented a news-feed to a Minix machine
I don't know.  Can anyone else answer this?

> 5 NNTP -- is it asking too much?
Again, I don't know.  Anyone else?

> 6 What Macintosh-hardware limitations are there for Minix use
> (will it run without a hard drive?).  Also:  what about its speed,
> I hear that Minix isn't the fastest of the operating systems around
> (not being designed for speed, either)
Currently you need a hard disk to operate, but that is only because
I haven't tried to make it run on a floppy only system.  I would expect
that the actual distribution will do this. Otherwise, there
are no limitations.  It runs on or with everything I have tried.

As for speed, that is a pretty tough question to answer, as it
depends highly on your yard stick.  People are strange, and I have given
MacMINIX to people who were terribly disappointed because it didn't
somehow magically transform their little 68000 running at 8MHz
into a 68020 or 68030 running at 16 or 33MHz, like the Sun they use
at work or school.  On my Mac IIcx, the drystones are comparable to
a Sun 3/50.  It takes about the same amount of real time to compile
and execute a fairly large program on both.  I can drive them both into
ground by compiling a few things simultaneously. In this sense, MacMINIX
is exactly as fast (or slow) as I would expect.  Is this what you mean
by performance? If you have a program that produces some specific metric
or metrics that mean something to you, I will be happy to run it and post
the results.  Otherwise, I really don't know how to address this question.

> 7 If possible I'd like to see a full list of all the utilities that
> have been tested and will be available together with the MacMinix.
It's a little premature to try to answer this question.  I think the
stuff that comes with 1.3 IBM version would comprise a fairly accurate list.

Joe Pickert