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Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watnot!watmath!clyde!cbatt!ihnp4!homxb!houxm!hjuxa!petsd!moncol!john
From: john@moncol.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: MINIX and the Tandy 1000
Message-ID: <472@moncol.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 5-Apr-87 01:46:19 EST
Article-I.D.: moncol.472
Posted: Sun Apr  5 01:46:19 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 10-Apr-87 04:35:47 EST
References: <1127@botter.cs.vu.nl>
Reply-To: john@moncol.UUCP (John Ruschmeyer)
Distribution: world
Organization: Monmouth College, W. Long Branch, NJ 07764
Lines: 57
Keywords: sob, whimper

In article <1127@botter.cs.vu.nl> ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) writes:
>
>I talked to Prentice-Hall today and was informed that they began shipping MINIX
>diskettes on March 23.  Hopefully people will begin getting them soon.
>When you get yours, try it on whatever kind of clones you have around,
>and post a note to the news group saying what happened.

Well, Monmouth College's copy of the 640K PC package arrived yesterday.
Last evening I tried to bring up a copy on my personal machine- a Tandy
1000. (Most of the PC's at Monmouth are AT&T 6300's- MINIX runs great on
them, though I haven't tried the HD yet.)

Summary: MINIX won't run on the Tandy 1000.

Details: The boot diskette comes up fine. I am able to check the
	filesystems, etc. After replacing the Boot Diskette with the Root File
	system, I press the '=' key and the world comes to a dead halt. This is
	a total hang which can only be cleared by cycling the power or pressing
	the RESET button.

	Today I took the disks to the local Radio Shack to try MINIX on the
	present generation of Tandy 1000.

	First I tried MINIX on a 384K 1000SX (with a 20MB HD). The results
	were the same as above.

	Next I tried MINIX on a 256K 1000EX (DMA installed, etc.). This was
	a bit strange- instead of hanging, it panicked after printing three
	or four messages about the winchester process receiving -1. Was this
	due to a lack of memory?

NOTES:	For those who might be able to offer suggestions, let me state a few
	technical notes on the 1000.:

	The system definately has the correct CRTC- the MC6845.

	The FDC is an Intel 8272A. Though this is not the chip I have seen
	mentioned in previous articles, I was led to believe that it was an
	exact replacement. No?

	Memory management on the 1000 is a tad different than on a real PC-
	actually it's closer to that of a PCjr. In short, there is no dedicated
	video memory; rather the top 16K is stolen for this purpose and somehow
	mapped into the 0xB800 segment. Thus, ny 640K Tandy 1000 is really a
	624K machine.

Any suggestions?

-- 
Name:		John Ruschmeyer
US Mail:	Monmouth College, W. Long Branch, NJ 07764
Phone:		(201) 571-3557
UUCP:		...!vax135!petsd!moncol!john	...!princeton!moncol!john
						   ...!pesnta!moncol!john

	"If the nemesis in this movie can be a giant roll of aluminum foil,
	 then I can name our ship after a super absorbent paper towel."