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From: rnf@shumv1.uucp (Rick Fincher)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: Re: UNIX on the Apple II?
Message-ID: <1990Jan18.181506.6059@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu>
Date: 18 Jan 90 18:15:06 GMT
References: <113300242@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu> <11977@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Reply-To: rnf@shumv1.ncsu.edu (Rick Fincher)
Organization: NCSU Computing Center
Lines: 67

In article <11977@smoke.BRL.MIL> gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn) writes:
>In article <113300242@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu> saa33413@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu writes:
>>Here's my question.  UNIX was written in C.  Given this fact, one could
>>theoretically run UNIX on any computer with a C compiler.  The Apple II has
>>several C compilers.  Theoretically, you could therefore run UNIX on an Apple
>>II.  However, theory and practice are sometimes two different things.
>
>Particularly if your theory is all wet.
>
>By analogy:  A refinery process control system is written in Fortran.
>Therefore I should be able to manufacture gasoline on any computer that
>has a Fortran compiler.

Your logic is what is all wet.  The computer controlling the refinery
doesn't manufacture gasoline either.  It controls the process, so yes
any computer that can run the fortran program within the limits of its
design can control the refinery and "manufacture" gasoline.

The whole point in writing a large portion of UNIX in C was so it could be
easily ported as the original poster suggested.  It is usually done by 
writing a compiler on an existing UNIX platform that produces code for a
target processor or system, then transferring the program code over.  That 
does not stop one from using a different OS to generate the code and a loader
etc.

>
>>Has anybody ever tried to run UNIX on an Apple II?
>
>A full port would be required, involving a vast amount of work

Why? A subset like MINIX would give the small computer user many of the
features they want from UNIX without the overhead of supporting a bunch of
useless mini-computer features.

>particularly considering how awful the Apple II hardware is.

This is relative, the Cray has an "awful" price, as do many of the "REAL"
computers you suggest.

The Apple hardware is good for what it was designed for, and for its price
range.  Sure it doesn't have hardware memory management and a lot of other 
things that make UNIX run more efficiently on high end machines.  The IBM
PC version of MINIX has decent performance on limited hardware, the GS would be
much better.

If I remember correctly, the PDP-7 that UNIX was originally written on had
128K.  Granted it had virtual memory and hardware memory protection, but
it too was limited hardware, much more so in many ways than the IIgs.

>
>My advice is to forget it.  If you want UNIX, buy a real computer.

That sounds like what people told Steve Wozniak when he had an idea for a
neat little computer using a microprocessor.  'Forget it kid, there's no
market, It'll never sell.  Buy a real computer (for $50,000 plus)'.  
Fortunately, he didn't listen to the "Experts".

Most of those "Real Computers" are now on the junkpile and the Apple II is 
still going.

It all comes down to what you want to use it for.  Obviously the IIgs is
going to be inadequate to do supersonic airflow simulations.  It can do it,
it would just be too slow to be practical.  But it'll be fine for running
a couple of user applications under a multitasking system.

Rick Fincher
rnf@shumv1.ncsu.edu