Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!ames!pacbell!trane!thomas
From: thomas@trane.UUCP (Thomas Driemeyer)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: is Minix portable?
Keywords: 68020, 1.5.0
Message-ID: <845@trane.UUCP>
Date: 12 Jan 90 16:38:17 GMT
Organization: Aurora Systems Redwood City, California
Lines: 42

Hi, 

I have a home-built 68020/68000 box at home and have decided that Minix is
the best thing that can happen to it. Problem is, the architecture is wildly
incompatible with everything else, so I can't just walk into the next store
and buy Minix. So the idea is to use a Unix system and a Sozobon compiler
to port everything, and then run it at home.

Is that practical? I have written multiuser OS's before, but I don't want
to spend years on this.

In <360@fwi.uva.nl>, croes@fwi.uva.nl (Felix A. Croes) writes
> My ld will be part of Frans Meulebroeks' semi-official Minix ST 1.5.0 update.

Glad to hear that there will be a 1.5.0 for the Atari. If it is available,

- I buy Minix ST 1.1,
- apply Frans's patches (I hope they are posted, I can't ftp),
- port and compile everything on Unix using zcc,
- run it at home.

Right? It would save _a lot_ of trouble if there is a streamer or 1/2"
tape version of the Minix ST 1.1, the info sheet is a bit ambiguous here.
If so, what format does it use, and what is the ISBN?
Has anyone done this (the Mac folks, for example)? Are there reasons why
this is utterly impossible without using an Atari? Or do I just have to
rewrite the booter, the exception code and the drivers, and off I go?
Complications I could do without are, for example, assumptions that an
integer is always 16 bits, address 0 must be writable, addresses must be
< 2**24, F-line opcodes are reserved, caches can't be used etc. I like
Sozobon because the source is available.

My box was designed with a 68030 in mind. Can Minix be extended to use
virtual, copy-on-write memory schemes?

Please email.
Thanks a lot!

Thomas Driemeyer
pyramid!trane!thomas

Disclaimer: My company has nothing to do with this.