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From: petrilli@walt.cc.utexas.edu (Chris Petrilli)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: Will Minix run on a Sota286/i?
Summary: Low level compatibility a concern.
Message-ID: <33185@ut-emx.UUCP>
Date: 3 Jul 90 00:40:03 GMT
References: <3927@iitmax.IIT.EDU>
Sender: news@ut-emx.UUCP
Reply-To: petrilli@walt.cc.utexas.edu (Chris Petrilli)
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas
Lines: 25

In article <3927@iitmax.IIT.EDU> ed@iitmax.iit.edu (Ed Federmeyer) writes:
>I have sucessfully upgraded Minix to 1.5.10, and would like to use the
>'286' mode...  I have a PC/XT clone with a Sota 286/i "speedup" board.  So
>far, when I run DOS "system checkers" they all think it is a 286...  but when
>I try to run Minix in the '286' mode, it hangs.  (8088 mode works like a charm
>though...)  Does anyone else have one of these boards running Minix in the
>'286' mode?  I kinda figure you need the Sota Memory/16 "expantion-expantion"
>:-) board to make the XT look enough like an AT to use all the interrupts
>and stuff, but I thought maybe I am just overlooking something.  Any ideas?
>

I beleive you have the right idea, but the problem stems from the fact that
Minix uses almost no BIOS calls (except for the beginning as I recall). 
I have a suspesion that the SOTA board, while compatible with DOS, cannot
handle the low-level bit-twidling that Minix does.

Another possibility is the fact that you are still using an xt controller 
(xt_wini.c), and the 286 version is linked with the AT version (at_wini.c),
you might try reversing this.

+ Chris Petrilli                                    "Opinons represented here
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