Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!mcgill-vision!snorkelwacker!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!daver!bungi.com!news
From: culberts@hplwbc.hpl.hp.com (Bruce Culbertson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.nsc.32k
Subject: Re:  various unresolved issues.
Message-ID: <9005071905.AA02506@hplwbc.HPL.HP.COM>
Date: 7 May 90 19:05:25 GMT
Sender: news@daver.bungi.com
Lines: 39
Approved: news@daver.bungi.com

> *** On the software front: ***
> 
> How's Minix coming along? I can't help but (humorously) remember
> a certain quote from Bruce in <8912081857.AA01037@hplwbc.HPL.HP.COM>
> on Fri, 8 Dec 89 10:57:10 pst:
> 
> >I would guess that a one weekend effort would get Minix running on the
> >pc-532.

Oh well, I knew at the time that was a dumb thing to say.  It's
always better to do something and then say you did it.  However,
in my defense...  I just spent my second weekend at home since
November.  The first weekend was consumed getting the monitor to talk
to my OMTI SCSI to floppy/ST-506 interface.  This was prerequisite
to working on Minix.

I finally got some time to work on Minix this weekend.  Those UART's
are a pain in the arse to use -- I wasted a lot of time getting
the TTY task working.  I got the kernel running (no fs or mm yet)
but still have stubs for the SCSI driver and the page manipulation
routines.  I compiled a few test versions with some hard-wired "user"
processes.  One test checked out the TTY driver.  Another had two
processes which passed a token (really a Minix message) back and
forth.  The current token holder printed a string to the screen
and then sent the token back to the other process.  Hence, the
screen looked like

	process 1
	process 2
	process 1
	...

That's even less useful than printing pi to 10,000 places, eh?
I'm pretty sure I will not get any more time to work on Minix in the
next two weeks.  But then (here comes another soon-to-be-regretted
statement), I expect to see a Minix login after another weekend 
of work.

Bruce