Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Apple ][ Minix
Message-ID: <1989May7.033711.27901@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <4155@crash.cts.com>
Date: Sun, 7 May 89 03:37:11 GMT

In article <4155@crash.cts.com> jca@pnet01.cts.com (John C. Archambeau) writes:
>I have no qualms with seeing a 65816 Minix (ala Apple //gs) but on a stock
>Apple with a 6502 and a 64k address space makes it impossible.  The 1.2 PC
>kernel is 89K after it's booted, and you need a ramdisk for the root file
>system, so that's just 360K of RAM just to start up...

On the other hand, Mini-UNIX (a cut-down V6 Unix) ran happily, if not too
quickly, in 56KB on small pdp11s, and there was at least one further-cut
variant that could run in still less.  "Run" here means things like "cc",
mind you, not just "echo". :-)  So it's not inherently impossible, unless
6502 code density is really dreadful (which it might be, given what a
horror that CPU is), if you're willing to work hard and do without the
ramdisk.  Difficult, yes...

(I remember a Mini-UNIX system on a 56KB LSI-11 with a small, slow hard
disk supporting several students programming in a database class.  I also
remember a Mini-UNIX that swapped on 8-inch floppies.  Mind you, neither
was fast, and I'm glad *I* didn't have to use either...)
-- 
Mars in 1980s:  USSR, 2 tries, |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
2 failures; USA, 0 tries.      | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu