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From: jca@pnet01.cts.com (John C. Archambeau)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: Unix for Atari 8-bit
Message-ID: <2989@crash.cts.com>
Date: 4 Jun 90 04:16:09 GMT
Sender: root@crash.cts.com
Organization: People-Net [pnet01], El Cajon CA
Lines: 53

gdtltr@freezer.it.udel.edu (Gary Duzan) writes:
>In article <2870@crash.cts.com> jca@pnet01.cts.com (John C. Archambeau) writes:
>=>One serious problem I forsee (and I don't even know if you can get around it)
>=>is how the Atari SIO bus handles devices.  If you have a serial port open, you
>=>have to have the channel to your disk drive closed.  This is how all terminal
>=>and BBS programs handle disk I/O.  So during a sync, every thirty or so
>=>seconds the user would experience this slow down because of:
>=>
>=>Close RS232 so we can yank the bus for disk I/O
>=>Do sync
>=>Reopen RS232 port
>=>
>=>And this would go on every time a disk I/O would be done.  This is assuming
>=>that you're going to make your Atari 8-bit Minix as Unix like as possible.
>=>
>=>Whether ICD's MIO board behaves this way or not, I don't know.  I do know that
>=>if you have a storage device daisy chained on the SIO port, you have to do
>=>this because of the small number of control lines.  And one of them being one
>=>IRQ which is enough to discourage me from attempting Minix on an Atari 8-bit. 
>=>At least with an IBM clone, you have some IRQ's to play with.
>=> 
>=>     // JCA
>=>
>   The ICD MIO eliminates this problem. At times I have set up my modem for
>folks to call in and directly access SpartaDOS with no special software. Since
>the MIO uses the parallel bus, there is no need to block the SIO bus. It also
>allows Hard Disk access.
>   I have given significant thought to running a Unix-like OS on a 6502, and
>while I imagine it could be done, I haven't quite that much stamina. However,
>in my spare time I am trying to port GCC to the 65816 in an attempt to get
>Minix to run on it. There is a 65816 upgrade (Turbo-816) for the Atari 8-bits,
>and I think that is a more reasonable project. More than likely I will never
>finish it, but I can dream, can't I? :-)

Oh yes, I've gone back and forth with you in e-mail a couple of times that the
65816 implementation would be much more doable.  If MIO boards didn't cost as
much as a 386SX motherboard, I may just go in with you on it for the heck of
it.

Unfortunately, for the cost of bringing my Atari XE system back up to snuff to
handle Minix development, I'd probably end up spending about as much as I
would for a second 386(SX) system.
 
     // JCA

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