Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!rutgers!ucsd!ucsdhub!hp-sdd!ncr-sd!ncrlnk!ncrpcd!wright!jsloan
From: jsloan@wright.EDU (John Sloan)
Newsgroups: comp.os.xinu
Subject: Re: xinu vs minix
Message-ID: <877@wright.EDU>
Date: 30 May 88 12:31:03 GMT
References: <85*dfbarchan@brock.cdn>
Organization: Wright State University, Dayton OH, 45435
Lines: 38

in article <85*dfbarchan@brock.cdn>, dfbarchan%brock.CDN@ean.ubc.ca (jerry barchanski) says:
	:
> textbook. The new version of the book for IBM PC will be available in January
> 1989 only - at the earliest - it is not available yet as claimed by prof. Comer.

Perhaps you mean its not yet available in Canada. I ordered my copy of
the P.C. Edition last week, picked it up yesterday, and its sitting on
my briefcase within eyesight right now. No special thing to ordering
it. I walked into my favorite book store and they had it on their
distributor's microfiche. The P.C. Edition looks like the LSI-11 edition
but for the blue background instead of the orange.

I agree about the prices being steep. I paid US$40 for my copy. Dr.
Comer of course has absolutely no say so about that. We have our friends
at Prentice-Hall to thank for that, and they are not grossly out of line
with what textbooks (unfortunately) cost now a days. At least it has a
hard cover... I paid US$35 for a softcover book not to long ago.

As for Minix vs. Xinu... I think it just depends upon what you really
want to use it for. You point about the standalone machines versus the
down line loading is also a good one. I've developed Forth based
realtime control systems for academic laboratory use, and have used
both approaches (downloading to an LSI-11 from larger system, and
running standalone on an LSI-11). The downloading is much better if
you're working on a group project, where you can have all the
development staff accessing the same timesharing system, with all the
tools and compilers and utilities etc., and sharing the source files.
If you're working by yourself, the cost and complexity of downloading
from a host system may be out of line. But even then, when doing
operating system development, I like the warm fuzzy feeling I get from
having a development engine that I can still use when I really hose up
the target workstation.

-- 
John Sloan, The SPOTS Group    Wright State University Research Building
CSNET: jsloan@SPOTS.Wright.Edu  3171 Research Blvd., Kettering, OH 45420
UUCP:  ...!wright!jsloan                +1-513-259-1384  +1-513-873-2491
Logical Disclaimer: belong(opinions,jsloan). belong(opinions,_):-!,fail.