Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!zephyr!tektronix!psueea!psueea.uucp!kirkenda
From: kirkenda@psueea.uucp (Steve Kirkendall)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: Are Minix-PC and Minix-ST media compatible ?
Message-ID: <1371@psueea.UUCP>
Date: 9 Jun 89 22:37:35 GMT
References: <17162@louie.udel.EDU> <618@lzaz.ATT.COM>
Sender: news@psueea.UUCP
Reply-To: kirkenda@jove.cs.pdx.edu (Steve Kirkendall)
Organization: Dept. of Computer Science, Portland State University; Portland OR
Lines: 34

In article <618@lzaz.ATT.COM> hcj@lzaz.ATT.COM (HC Johnson) writes:
>In article <17162@louie.udel.EDU>, VBRANDT%DBNUAMA1.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu writes:
>>    if this is a somewhat stupid question, please forgive me, but I'll ask
>> anyway. Are Minix-PC and Minix-ST media compatible ?
>
>Then if you do get a file, if its a tar or ar, again shorts and longs.

Whoa! Tar should work.  All numbers in a tar archive are represented as a
fixed-length string of ASCII digits, which give the number in octal.  Thus,
tar archives are immune to byte ordering dependencies.

I haven't tried this with Minix tar, but in the past have been able to carry
tar-format tapes between '286 machines running SCO Xenix, and a Unisys 5000/80
(a 680x0 machine running SysV).  I never had the slightest trouble.

To make a tar archive, GIVE THE NAME OF THE RAW DEVICE AS THE NAME OF THE
ARHCIVE FILE THAT TAR SHOULD USE.  For example, this command stores all files
& directories in your current directory on the disk in drive /dev/rfd1...

	$ tar c /dev/rfd1 .

You can store one archive per disk.  Note that the disk will not have a file
system on it; it will have a tar archive on it instead.

Another option: format the 3.5" disk under MS-DOS, and then use the tos/dos
utilities to put the files on the disk in MS-DOS format, which is more
standardized.  This may require more work, since the tos/dos utilities do
not handle subdirectories very well.

I have used Minix-ST's tos utility to put files on a 3.5 disk which I then
read on a '286 machine running MS-DOS, so the tos and dos utilities must be
compatible.
	-- Steve Kirkendall
	   ...uunet!tektronix!psu-cs!kirkenda