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From: alex@umbc4.umbc.edu (Alex S. Crain)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.3b1,comp.sys.att
Subject: Re: 3B1 Device Driver Dev. Guide update and ordering info
Message-ID: <4904@umbc3.UMBC.EDU>
Date: 28 Jan 91 01:23:37 GMT
References: <38457@cup.portal.com> <38501@cup.portal.com>
Sender: newspost@umbc3.UMBC.EDU
Reply-To: alex@umbc4.umbc.edu.UUCP (Alex S. Crain)
Organization: University of Maryland Baltimore County
Lines: 31

In article <38501@cup.portal.com> thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan) writes:

> One person asked about the "UNIX PC Device Driver Development Kit".  I
> have NEVER seen this "kit" and indications "suggest" it may never have
> been produced though there are related materials in the
> att7300/STORE/IHVDIAG+IN.Z and other files at osu-cis

	About the IHVDIAG stuff. For those in the dark about this, this
is the sources to diagnostincs disk, and is basically a *very* stripped
unix kernal. No process table, paging, etc but there are drivers for
the disk, console, tty port, etc, and these drivers all use the same
structures as the unix kernel (gdsw, etc).

	The code is pretty evil, and made even worse by the stub
functions for all the tests (the source is to the drivers, not the test code).
None the less, its a good start for people who want to hack on the
hardware, or write standalone applications. You could, for example,
use it to port minix, bsd, a standalone X server (the unix-pc as an Xterm),
a *fast* computer game, etc.

	I myself used it as the framework for a scheme based operating
system that runs at the hardware level. I've got a basic scheme kernel
with console I/O and a primitive filesystem interface for the floppy.
It needs more work (an editor, extend-syntax, graphics, etc) and should
be available in about 6 months.


#################################		           :alex.
#Disclaimer: Anyone who agrees  #                 Systems Programmer
#with me deserves what they get.#    University of Maryland Baltimore County
#################################	    alex@umbc3.umbc.edu