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From: stevew@en.ecn.purdue.edu (Steven L Wootton)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: loading (IBM version) demo disk file onto a floppy
Summary: Don't get too excited.
Message-ID: <1991Mar1.003906.16132@en.ecn.purdue.edu>
Date: 1 Mar 91 00:39:06 GMT
References: <62835@bbn.BBN.COM> <5769@bwdls58.bnr.ca>
Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network
Lines: 32

In article <5769@bwdls58.bnr.ca> mlord@bwdls58.bnr.ca (Mark Lord) writes:
>I found this in comp.os.minix.. it describes a way to copy the minix demo
>file onto a floppy disk.  Perhaps this will enable our gracious moderator
>to finally produce a useable posting of the minix demo.. ?
>
>In article <62835@bbn.BBN.COM> grossman@bbn.com (Martin Grossman) writes:
><
><Here's a quick and dirty way to load andy's demo disk onto a 360K floppy.

Not necessary.  There is a program for doing this in the same directory as
the demo.  I snagged the demo file and the disk-loader, and had the minix
demo running in about ten minutes.

I'm not sure what anyone is expecting from this demo, but it isn't terribly
interesting.  Unless, of course, you like playing with bourne shell scripts,
checking your disk space, and mounting and unmounting floppy volumes.

There is no way to get other programs onto the system (no support for DOS
files, no support for COM ports), there is no compiler, and you can't make
your shell scripts executables (there is no chmod [among many other things]).
There are no games, no application programs (other than a simple editor),
no system source code, and only about 20 standard unix utilities.

Essentially, you see everything there is to see in about 10 minutes, if it
takes you that long.  The only use I can think of for the demo is to see if
minix will actually run on your hardware before you lay out $170 for the
real package.

Steve Wootton
stevew@ecn.purdue.edu
stevew@pur-ee.uucp
stevew%ecn.purdue.edu@purccvm.bitnet