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From: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: Minix 1.2 Bustedness
Message-ID: <2238@ast.cs.vu.nl>
Date: 1 Apr 89 21:38:24 GMT
References: <11641@ut-emx.UUCP>
Reply-To: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Organization: VU Informatica, Amsterdam
Lines: 23

In article <11641@ut-emx.UUCP> kjm@ut-emx.UUCP (kjm) writes:
>I'm running on a semi-homebrew AT clone
Is the semi-homebrew 100% hardware compatible with the real IBM AT?
If not, that is probably related to your problems.  Thousands of people are
now running MINIX on dozens of machines without too many major problems, so
I think the basic operating system is at least moderately debugged by now.

>1)  The cursor sometimes goes away when it is in the bottom half or so of
>    the screen.  
This problem is well known.  It is caused by having an EGA card that is not
compatible with IBM's.  Some clone EGA boards are compatible and some are not.
I'll bet yours is in the latter category.  V1.3 should work ok if you enable
software scrolling (hit F3).

>2)  I am completely unable to make a file system on my hard disk
Hard disk problems have been reported with many incompatible controllers.
Again, I suspect hardware incompatibility.  If you tried booting a plain
vanilla Xenix out of the box, I think you would have the same problems.
Unlike user programs, operating systems make much tougher demands on the
hardware.  You might try V1.3, which is more robust than V1.2, but I give
no promise of success with a semi-homebrew machine.

Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl)