Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!zephyr.ens.tek.com!uw-beaver!cornell!rochester!udel!mmdf From: Dickson@system-m.az05.bull.com (Paul Dickson) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.emulations Subject: Re: Ibem and Minix Message-ID: <57407@nigel.ee.udel.edu> Date: 28 Jun 91 00:56:51 GMT Sender: mmdf@ee.udel.edu Lines: 41 In artcile from "M. Tomlinson" : >In article <56948@nigel.ee.udel.edu>, Dickson@system-m.az05.bull.com (Paul Dickson) writes: > > Has anyone tried to run Minix under Ibem? I would expect that Minix > > would need to be recompiled with different console code and floppy > > access code, but does Ibem emulated the rest of the PC hardware (timers, > > dma, etc). > > IBeM will not run Minix. Minix (as far as I understand it) ignores the > BIOS completely and accesses the hardware directly for everything. At > present, IBeM only emulates a small amount of hardware, eg the screen > and keyboard. The disk access *must* be done through the BIOS, and > apart from the timer tick, there is no timer/DMA support.` > > One of the questions I'd ask is why? Surely Minix exists for the Amiga > now, doesn't it? I don't want to lose the advantage of an advance OS on the Amiga. I want to keep running the Amiga's OS. If I was never going to use my Amiga as an Amiga then sure, I could boot Minix. But I'd rather have both system's at once. I'm not considering running Minix unmodified. In article from "Charles Cazabon (186-003-526" : > It might work; but I doubt it. I am not particularly familiar with > Minix, but first of all, IBeM only emulates an XT (8088). Doesn't Minix > require at the very minimum a 286? Minix only need an XT compatible to run, but there are versions that need specific modes only the 286 or the 386 and higher can support. Thing about this a bit and the port looks even easier. Assuming that IBeM implements BIOS in the 68000 environment (it should be for speed) then the various low-level functions of the Minix kernel could be implemented by BIOS calls. The main reason this isn't already done on the PC is the BIOS calls are not reenterant, but the BIOS calls on IBeM are atomic getting rid of this problem. The only problem this leaves is can occasional timer interrupt. This seems to be the only point of difficulty as DMA can done with direct program I/O if necessary.