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Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watnot!watmath!clyde!rutgers!husc6!seismo!mcvax!botter!ast
From: ast@botter.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Various comments
Message-ID: <1075@botter.cs.vu.nl>
Date: Mon, 23-Feb-87 05:17:01 EST
Article-I.D.: botter.1075
Posted: Mon Feb 23 05:17:01 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 26-Feb-87 22:22:46 EST
Reply-To: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Distribution: world
Organization: VU Informatica, Amsterdam
Lines: 45

In article <1276@husc6.UUCP> ddl@husc6.UUCP (Dan Lanciani) writes:
>
>	With all the discussion of how you can't use the PC BIOS because
>it can only handle one disk operation at a time, has anyone noticed that
>the MINIX file system process runs single-threaded for normal file requests?

This is true, but while the file system is waiting for a disk operation
to complete, another process can run.  For example, parts of the C compiler
work as a pipeline, so while one pass is blocked on the disk, another
pass can run.  Of course if the other pass also tries to do disk I/O it
will be suspended until the first operation is finished (although a third
process could run, if there was one).  I haven't thought at all about
multi-threading the file system.  This left as is an exercise for the reader.


The person who wrote the assembler-loader (asld) has fixed it to handle
separate I & D.  I am now in the process of testing it.  When I am
finished, I will post an encoded binary to this group, along with my version
of uuencode and uudecode.  Although I am not wild about binary postings in
general, the source of asld, being part of the compiler stuff, is not in
the standard MINIX distribution, and is only available from UniPress and
Transmediair.  When I post asld, I will also send copies to both companies
so that their compiler distributions will contain the new version from that
point on.

Lots of people are having trouble getting through to me and I am having
trouble replying to lots of people.  If you send me mail asking specific
questions and don't get a response within a week, chalk it up to the net.
My proper address in the domain naming system is: ast@cs.vu.nl
With source routing, use: ...!seismo!mcvax!vu44!ast
My phone number is (country code 31) (area code 20) 548 2975.
The dept. office phone number is 31 20 548 8080.  If you call this number
you will get Marja, Betty, Marijke, Anjo, or Edith, all of whom are nice
ladies who speak English and can take a message for me if need be.  Keep
in mind that Columbus was right and the earth is round and that this means
that the time in Amsterdam is not necessarily the same as your local time.
A short international call is preferable to using the net to send me mail
since (1) thousands of people will have to read something they are not
interested in, and (2) broadcasting the mail worldwide costs a lot of money.

P-H tells me that the diskettes will be going out the door starting March 6.
Sorry for the delay, but the amount of interest in MINIX caught everyone by
surprise.  It took them a while to get the production geared up.

Andy Tanenbaum