Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!ukma!wuarchive!uunet!mcsun!hp4nl!star.cs.vu.nl!ast
From: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: PC Minix demo (questions)
Keywords: demo, 360k/1.2MB drives, 720k/1.44MB, help!
Message-ID: <9229@star.cs.vu.nl>
Date: 7 Mar 91 10:23:34 GMT
References: <1991Mar5.055145.7352@csus.edu> <1991Mar5.214921.1010@unixg.ubc.ca>
Sender: news@cs.vu.nl
Organization: Fac. Wiskunde & Informatica, VU, Amsterdam
Lines: 28

In article <1991Mar5.214921.1010@unixg.ubc.ca> twong@civil.ubc.ca (Thomas Wong) writes:
>What happens with me is I would reboot with the demo disk, the first
>menu comes up, I choose = and the cursor moves to the next line as if it
>accepted my command but then just sits there. 

I'm surprised at this behavior and don't know what is causing it.  I do know
that MINIX regards a 360K diskette in a 1.2M drive as a quite different
beast than a 360K diskette in a 360K drive or a 1.2M diskette in a 1.2M drive.
These combinations all have different minor device numbers.  Perhaps the
problem is related to this somehow.

Could the people who have had this problem do the following:

  1. Format a 360K DD diskette on a 360K drive (i.e., a friend's machine).
     In theory, formating a DD diskette as 360K on a 1.2M drive is not really
     supposed to work due to the different drive head width.

  2. Copy the demo file to the 360K diskette.

  3. Try booting it on a friend's machine that actually has a 360K drive.

Better yet, if possible, do everything on a machine with a 360K drive, and
then try booting the 360K disk on the machine with only a 1.2M drive.  Then
post a message to the net reporting the results.  My suspicion is that there
is something wrong with the use of 360K diskettes in 1.2M drives, but I don't
know what.

Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl)