Path: utzoo!utgpu!utstat!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cwjcc!neoucom!wtm
From: wtm@neoucom.UUCP (Bill Mayhew)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Apple System 7.0
Summary: versus Amiga and Convergent Miniframe a.k.a AT&T Unix PC
Message-ID: <1629@neoucom.UUCP>
Date: 13 May 89 15:47:05 GMT
References: <17148@usc.edu> <24279@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <18268@cup.portal.com>
Organization: Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine
Lines: 33


Hmmmm.  Amiga running Convergent Technologies' Unix.  That is an
interesting rumor.  It surprises me though, as the hardware
environment of the Amiga 2500 is quite a bit different from the
Miniframe.  There are many differences in the memory
management hardware.  I thought the Miniframe used a 4K page table
that worked in fixed 1K pages yeilding a maximum of 4 megabytes of
physical RAM in the Minifram.  Seems like a lot of rehacking of the
kernel would be required to accomodate the 68851, but it could be done
I suppose.  I don't know about the screen memory layout, but that
seems like another area that would need a lot of work to port.

I'd like to see a more modern Sys V r3 unix for the Amiga.  The
latest rev I have running on my Unix PC is version 3.5.1, which is
not to say that it is Sys V, r3.  The Unix PC Unix release is a
sort of mixed bag looking much like Sys V, r0 and some Berkeley
stuuff with some other unique stuff.  Eventhough the Unix PC Unix
doesn't have binary code compatibility, I've heard reprots that
binaries can be run on other 68K boxes as long as the Unix PC
shared libraries are not used and stdio is used.

I do have a 3b1 Unix PC, and it was definitely many years ahead of
its time.  The Unix PC can be run with as little as 512K of RAM and
a 10 meg disk drive, but it is not at all fun to use with such
limited resources.  One megabyte and a 40 meg disk is pretty
workable.  I use 2 megabytes and a 67 meg disk.  The swapping on a
512K system with a (slow) 10 meg disk makes for jagged nerves.  On
my system, about half the memory is free with one user logged into
a full screen window; swapping is rare.  Not bad.


Bill
wtm@impulse.UUCP