Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!think!samsung!munnari.oz.au!sirius.ucs.adelaide.edu.au!levels!macfs
From: MACFS@levels.sait.edu.au (Chris Steketee)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: Whatever happened to Mac/Minix
Message-ID: <6405@levels.sait.edu.au>
Date: 15 Jan 90 16:12:21 GMT
References: <2931@murtoa.cs.mu.oz.au> <7550@cs.utexas.edu>
Organization: Sth Australian Inst of Technology
Lines: 34

In article <7550@cs.utexas.edu>, knapp@cs.utexas.edu (Edgar Knapp) writes a bad
review of MacMinix.

His comments disturb me, because:

1.  He seems not to understand that the purpose of Minix is education about
    Operating System design and construction.  Minix is *not* intended as a
    commercial operating system to compete with Xenix or Apple's A/UX or
    whatever.  This applies to MacMinix just as it does to PC Minix.

    If P-H asked him to beta-test / review MacMinix without this basic
    information, they are going to get a review based on a false premise.  You
    can't test or review something if you don't know what it's for.


2.  This sort of attitude on the part of reviewers may lead to P-H deciding not
    to publish MacMinix and/or Amiga Minix.  Which would leave considerable
    numbers of us disappointed, not to say hopping mad.


By and large, the details of the review sound like MacMinix is in at least as
good a state as PC Minix was in its early days.  Less than perfect, certainly.
But this did not stop PC Minix being a great success for OS education (as well
as for hackers).  And which gives lots of opportunity for setting student
exercises to add features.

The non-functioning of the C compiler *is* a problem that, if real, needs to be
fixed before P-H release.

Chris Steketee,
School of Maths and Computer Studies,
S.A. Institute of Technology, Adelaide, Australia

macfs@levels.sait.oz.au