Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!mit-eddie!husc6!bbn!uwmcsd1!ig!agate!ucbvax!sdcsvax!ucsdhub!jack!wolf!drew
From: drew@wolf.UUCP (Drew Dean)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: porting minix to the mac
Summary: I think you're trying to do the wrong thing...
Message-ID: <624@wolf.UUCP>
Date: 23 Jan 88 20:19:36 GMT
References: <1436@lll-lcc.aRpA> <1825@botter.cs.vu.nl> <254@csed-47.csed-1.UUCP>
Organization: Systems'n'Software San Diego, CA
Lines: 24


I, as a Mac owner, would like to see Minix ported to the Mac.  However, I see
2 options:
1) Run Minix as a guest OS under the Finder/MultiFinder in a window, and pass
   all I/O through to the Mac OS to handle
or
2) Forget ALL about the Mac OS, and do everything yourself.  This means no 
QuickDraw, no Memory Manager needed for QuickDraw, no [blank] needed for {blank}...  Designing a font and writing it directly to the screen really isn't that
hard, and floppy control is doable too.  Note that the IWM is a single chip
implementation of the Apple II disk controller board, and plenty of copy-
protected Apple II software knew how to talk to it without any other routines.
(So do all the copying programs for both machines)  Treated like this, the Mac
becomes a generic 68000 with a bit-mapped screen, .5 - 4 Mb Ram, and a SCSI
port.  I have a feeling that the floppy would only be used for loading Minix
onto the hard drive anyway.  Note also that the hard drive can hold more than
one partition, each with a different OS, and there is some control over what
boots.  Look in Inside Mac Vol 5 for more info(Yes, Vol 5 is available, I bought
it from Addison-Wesly at MacWorld last week).  Writing hard disk drivers for 
each type of hard disk would be a pain, but it seems that the IBM world is 
facing the same problem....

Drew Dean
UUCP: {sdcsvax,ihnp4}!jack!wolf!drew
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