Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!att!lzaz!hcj
From: hcj@lzaz.ATT.COM (HC Johnson)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: Are Minix-PC and Minix-ST media compatible ?
Summary: NO!
Message-ID: <618@lzaz.ATT.COM>
Date: 8 Jun 89 18:20:15 GMT
References: <17162@louie.udel.EDU>
Organization: AT&T ISL Lincroft NJ USA
Lines: 29

In article <17162@louie.udel.EDU>, VBRANDT%DBNUAMA1.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu writes:
> 
> Hello all,
> 
>    if this is a somewhat stupid question, please forgive me, but I'll ask
> anyway. Are Minix-PC and Minix-ST media compatible ?
> 
>    The reason I ask is this: I have Minix-ST on my Mega ST4 and the recently
> posted Min2DOS package on my AT clone. I tried to read a Minix-ST disk in the
> 3.5" 720KB drive on my AT, but always got a message like 'No Minix filesystem'.
The media are not compatible because the logical information is stored
differently.

The problem starts in the super block which contains shorts and longs.
shorts are stored byte reversed between the two machines.  longs stagger
the imagination.

Then if you do get a file, if its a tar or ar, again shorts and longs.

I did port the utilities to read minix FS to my 80386 based UNIX and
was able to read and recover files from the P-H 1.3 upgrade as all
xx86 computers do shorts and longs the same.  Only pure source
could be ported to the ST.  (Oh yes, it didn't run there even tho' it
compiled).	

Howard C. Johnson
ATT Bell Labs
att!lzaz!hcj
hcj@lzaz.att.com