Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!nuchat!sugar!karl
From: karl@sugar.UUCP (Karl Lehenbauer)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: The Amiga Port
Message-ID: <1781@sugar.UUCP>
Date: 30 Mar 88 07:15:39 GMT
References: <1483@louie.udel.EDU> <343@wsccs.UUCP>
Organization: Sugar Land UNIX - Houston, TX
Lines: 48

In article <343@wsccs.UUCP>, wes@wsccs.UUCP (Barnacle Wes) writes:
> In article <1483@louie.udel.EDU>, TLIMONCE%DREW.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu writes:
> Why is it a dead issue?  Because you are not interested?  I bet you beleive
> your bedroom is the center of the universe, too!
> ...
> Seriously, if you aren't interested in Minix, why are you here telling
> everyone why they DON'T want it for the Amiga?  Go back to comp.sys.amiga
> and 3-line function calls.

Now hold on there, flamer.  You apparently haven't been reading
comp.os.minix for long.  The idea of doing a Minix port for the 
Amiga has been beaten to death.  The consensus has been that Minix needs 
a way to relocate logical address zero and the Amiga can't (the ST can,
hence an ST port is, or is nearly, available), making it a *big* job.  
Further, it was widely agreed that massive amounts of development would 
be required to approach the functionality of the Amiga under Commodore's 
OS and toolset:  code for managing the blitter and copper, device 
drivers, libraries, etc. etc. etc.  Also, the incentive to port a 
multitasking exec to the Amiga isn't there nearly as much as for the 
ST and PC, since the Amiga is already multitasking and the ST and
PC aren't.  Finally, I think you'll find that AmigaDOS, for all its 
flaws, is a *supported*, production realtime operating system whereas 
Minix is a non-realtime educational effort that, with lots of continued 
hacking, will eventually get to a point where it is stable, complete and 
fast enough to be used in a production environment.  For the time being,
it is for "pioneers."  (On a Unix timeline, I think Minix is pre-version-6.)
I've played with Minix on an XT.  It is amazing in that it's a substantial
portion of Unix running on very little hardware.  It is very appropriate
for teaching operating systems.  It is also slow, way slower on an AT than
Microport Unix on an AT for example.  Having seen how Minix passes messages
(single message rendezvous) versus how the Amiga does it (multi-message
queuing, queueing without wait, also, lightweight processes), it is probable 
that Minix will be slower than AmigaDOS on an Amiga, although the current
version of AmigaDOS is bad enough at disk I/O that Minix could win on some
I/O functions.

So, if you want to port Minix to the Amiga as a project, knock yourself 
out, just don't expect it to have much of an impact outside of a cadre
of hardcore pioneer hobbyists.  While reinventing the wheel can be fun
and educational, and I've reinvented my share, you're going to have
to "roll your own" for an overwhelming amount of software.  Have a look 
at the Amiga ROM Kernel Manual sometime.  You may think it's garbage, 
but it represents man years of work - work that you and your friends'll 
have to duplicate in order to equal the functionality of the vendor-provided 
environment.
-- 
"Weekends were made for programming."  -me
..!uunet!nuchat!sugar!karl, Unix BBS (713) 438-5018