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From: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: Non-Intel Minix?
Message-ID: <1172@botter.cs.vu.nl>
Date: Fri, 8-May-87 17:31:50 EDT
Article-I.D.: botter.1172
Posted: Fri May  8 17:31:50 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 10-May-87 05:40:59 EDT
References: <132200005@convexs> <5129@beta.UUCP>
Reply-To: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Organization: VU Informatica, Amsterdam
Lines: 28

In article <5129@beta.UUCP> hwe@beta.UUCP (Skip Egdorf) writes:
[Discussion about MINIX on non Intel CPUs]

Early on in this group I mentioned this, but I will mention it again for
people who have joined recently.  There is a port underway to the Atari
ST.  It is making good progress, but as you all know, the first 99% is the
easy part.  I will post more when things are getting closer to completion.
The problem of the compiler is well known to us and will have to be dealt
with.  The person doing the 68000 port has access to all the compiler
sources and technology.  Precisely how will deal with this remains to be
seen, but we are keenly aware that a C compiler is very important and will
do our best to find a reasonable solution.

As far as porting to CPUs other than the 8088 family and 68000 family,
the problem is harder.  Licensing of the ACK source is one problem, but a
more serious one is its size.  The current ACK distribution includes about
half a dozen front ends for various languages and a dozen back ends, 
massive libraries, test suites and tons of stuff.  You need a 32-bit CPU
and probably at least 30-40 megabytes of empty disk space to even begin thinking
about bringing it up.  It works fine on VAXes and SUNs, but not on ATs.
This means that it isn't really aimed at individuals.  Universities can get
the whole source for $995, so people at a university who want the full sources
can get it for a price most universities can afford.  For people at companies
who are using the company's VAX or SUN to hack MINIX, we don't really have an
adequate solution unless the company needs ACK for its business and is willing
to pay the commercial price.  

Andy Tanenbaum