Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcsun!hp4nl!star.cs.vu.nl!ast
From: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: Xinu, Minix and Prentice-Hall
Keywords: Minix Xinu Prentice-Hall
Message-ID: <7891@star.cs.vu.nl>
Date: 10 Oct 90 16:34:39 GMT
References: <291@pdxgate.UUCP>
Sender: news@cs.vu.nl
Distribution: comp
Organization: Fac. Wiskunde & Informatica, VU, Amsterdam
Lines: 20

In article <291@pdxgate.UUCP> griffith@eecs.cs.pdx.edu (Michael Griffith) writes:
>Does anyone know if Minix is derived from the Prentice-Hall Xinu source?

Putting my linguist hat on:
Yes.  Of course.  The author obviously knows.  How could he not know?
Thus SOMEBODY certainly knows.


Putting my MINIX-author hat on:
No.  They are unrelated.  XINU Is Not Unix.  More specifically the system
call interface is not at all UNIX-like.  It's probably closer to CP/M than
to UNIX.   The utility programs aren't UNIX-like.  It's very different.
That Doug Comer and I happen to have the same publisher is an
accident.  I offered my first book to Addison Wesley, McGraw-Hill and
John Wiley.  All rejected it.  I suspect they may now regret that.
Serves them right.  In retrospect, I'm glad I'm with PH.  Despite their
occasional screw-ups with shipping the wrong MINIX box, as a publisher
they are very good, and their computer science editors are very helpful.

Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl)