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From: cmf@cisunx.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: Future Patches To Make Minix Usable in the Real World
Message-ID: <3604@cisunx.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 11-Jun-87 12:09:04 EDT
Article-I.D.: cisunx.3604
Posted: Thu Jun 11 12:09:04 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 13-Jun-87 09:40:30 EDT
References: <114@jc3b21.UUCP> <191@uoregon.UUCP>
Organization: Univ. of Pittsburgh, Comp & Info Sys
Lines: 38
Summary: Version 7 didn't do what?

In article <191@uoregon.UUCP>, dboyes@uoregon.UUCP (David Boyes) writes:
* >(4) The / directory is a flying joke. This must be because of the need to
* >    use 2 floppy drives instead of a hard disk. If you accidentally copy
* >    a large directory into slash / you are up for some entertainment.
* 
* Agreed. However, Minix is very like Sys 7 Unix on the old PDP-11's, and
* they handled / exactly like Minix does. Blame this one on the model, not
* Minix. 2.9 BSD has this problem, too.

I'm not sure exactly what the problem with "/" is.  The 7th edition (there never
has been a "Sys 7") didn't handle "/" significantly differently from any
Unix running today, including System V and 4.x BSD.

* >(6) NO SWAPPING IMPLEMENTED IS A HORROR!! What can I say?
* 
* Sys 7 didn't swap either -- this ain't vmunix. Plus, you have to take
* into consideration hardware constraints -- you can't swap to floppies --
* you yourself complained about how slow floppies are. 
*	(miscellaneous ravings deleted)

Version 7 (aka Seventh Edition, but NOT Sys 7 -- see above) most certainly
did swap.  You're confusing swapping with demand paging, which wasn't
implemented until 3.0 BSD came along.  Incidentally, if Version 7 didn't
swap, how did anybody get anything done on a PDP-11 with a 256Kbyte physical
address space?

I can understand not being familiar with the systems of the past, but to
make such obviously wrong statements about them is only creating more
confusion.  The Seventh Edition manuals were available in book stores
until they were replaced with System V Release 3 manuals.  Maybe your
book store still has a copy.  Check it out.


					Carl Fongheiser
					Systems Analyst/Programmer
					University of Pittsburgh
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					cmf@pittvms.BITNET