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From: brian@prism.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: minix good and bad
Message-ID: <422800001@prism>
Date: Mon, 2-Feb-87 11:08:00 EST
Article-I.D.: prism.422800001
Posted: Mon Feb  2 11:08:00 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 3-Feb-87 20:19:52 EST
References: <12329@sun.uucp>
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Nf-ID: #R:sun.uucp:-1232900:prism:422800001:000:1785
Nf-From: prism.UUCP!brian    Feb  2 11:08:00 1987


Re:Compiling MINIX Operating system:

Microsoft has version 4.0 of their C compiler, which among other things
professes to support ROMable code (i.e. no requirement for MSDOS - you
rewrite the startup environment (crt0...) which is not that hard), and 
the compiler also promises 99 44/100 % pure separation of code and data.
I bet the compiler could be useful for Compiling the MINIX source, but 
then you'd need to SYSGEN (gosh, remember those days?) disks in the MINIX
format.  Anyone care to comment?

Oh, and if MINIX takes off, can you imagine having a front end that
emulates MSDOS for MINIX, so we can run "all the important applications" 
(look what Microport did with SVR3 and msdos hybrid)? 1/2 :-)

Of course, Assembly language hackers can come up with macros (for say,
MASM 4.0 under MSDOS) that would support the minix environment, but then
again, there is the bootstrap issue.

I would imagine that the best way to proceed would be to Get minix, make sure
it runs on your machine, then write a MINIX application using the MSDOS
facilities (C, MASM), bring your code over to MINIX with the Readdos (or 
whatever Andy calls it -- I heard him mention it at the Usenix BOF), and 
try it out.  If you can get the calling conventions right with an application,
then it would be reasonable to try some lower level stuff.

Of course, you could buy two pyramids, and do MINIX development :-).

 
----
Brian K. Moran  brian@mirror.TMC.COM	
               {mit-eddie, ihnp4!inmet, wjh12, cca, datacube}!mirror!brian
Mirror Systems	2067 Massachusetts Avenue  Cambridge, MA, 02140
Telephone:	617-661-0777 extension 141

"Won't somebody tell me, just who and what I did...
 Why's this ring on my finger, and who's that screaming kid? " 
   From "Lost Weekend" by the Beat Farmers
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