Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!mailrus!uflorida!gatech!udel!mmdf
From: jnall%FSU.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu (John Nall 904-644-5241)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Documentation for Minix 1.3d
Message-ID: <6217@louie.udel.EDU>
Date: 4 Jan 89 13:53:12 GMT
Sender: mmdf@udel.EDU
Lines: 30

I previously put out a query as to whether other anyone had the 1.3d version
of dos{read/write/dir} working, as I was getting illegal traps.  With the
usual speed I got a reply which solved the problem -- dosread.c has to be
compiled with cc -O -i.  This is, of course, clearly documented in the
source code comments.  I appreciate the help, and it works great!

However, this does raise another issue which I think is worthy of discussion.
I first got wind of Minix when ast put out a general message that it was
available (that message should be kept in some sort of Hall of Fame somewhere)
and subsequently got the book and early source code.  Minix at that time was
pretty primitive (compared to what it is now) but made a  great teaching
tool.  For many of us (and I particularly include myself) that was the first
exposure to Unix.  The documentation was included in the textbook.

Since that time (about two years ago, I think, but time flies....) Minix has
matured a great deal, and is a nice, useful operating system completely
apart from being a teaching tool.  BUT....(my point, at long last!) it is no
longer completely documented by the textbook.  The book does not mention any
-O or -i parameters on the cc call.  It doesn't mention rs232, or networking,
or kermit, or any of a host of things which seem to me to have been either
not mentioned anywhere (because Unix gurus already know them), or else have
been mentioned in a mail message (but what about the newcomers?), or else
are mentioned somewhere in comments in source code.

I hope all this does not sound like a gripe -- it's not intended to be.  It
is intended to say "here is a problem for newcomers, so be gentle)."

Merry New Year to the worldwide Minix community!

John Nall