gng@spocom.UUCP (11/12/89)
(I'll admit, this may be long for a summary, yet there's just so much basic
information for each system...that...well...you know...arrgh :-)
This summary of Atari ST multitasking multiuser operating systems includes
quotes and other informative aspects from the users themselves.
(I may have edited some quotes and such for space purposes.)
Thanks to: attctc.Dallas.TX.US!jdoss@wuarchive.uucp (Joe Doss)
(for Minix/ST information)
jclark@ucsd.edu (John Clark)
avy@gkcl.ists.ca (Avygdor Moise)
(both for OS-9/68000 information)
and to myself for MT C-Shell information :-)
Note: Hmm...only three people responded to my posting - did I post it at a
bad time, or is it because that there really aren't many ST users out there
that use multi-OSs? C'mon people, enough of this 'bashing' on the ST and
whatnot - wake up and smell the coffee! The multi-OSs are available out there
for the ST - It used to take a bit of searching before you could find one, but
look now - they're here, and they work - and if you still feel like bashing
the ST without any regard as to the 'now' availability of these fine ST-based
multi-OSs, then you don't know the great things that you're missing out on...
(Email to me if you happen to use a multi-OS.)
MINIX/ST version 1.1 (herein referred to as 'Minix')
--------------------
(Joe Doss has been using Minix for eleven months.)
Minix is both multiuser and multitasking. A minimal setup for Minix would be
a 520ST with a SSDD drive. A more usual one would be a 1040ST/20meg hd.
And for those power-hungry users, a Mega 4 with a 100meg should suffice quite
nicely.
Almost anything written for Version 7 Unix runs without changes. Programs that
take advantage of newer features in System V or BSD are sometimes difficult to
port. It is also slow, compared to other OS's and it doesn't come with all
the standard Unix utilities.
Minix has good Unix compatibility (Joe gave it a 9/10 rating for that), and
the source code to the entire OS comes with it, so changes and improvements
are easy. Minix is well supported on Usenet in the comp.os.minix group, and
improvements and new utilities are constantly posted there.
Minix is written by Andrew Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl)
Info is available from: Prentice-Hall Inc., Englewood Cliffs, NJ 07632
Suggested price is $79.95 US
MT C-Shell version 1.20 (herein referred to as 'MTcsh')
-----------------------
(George Ng has used MT C-Shell for three years.)
MTcsh is a multitasking/multiuser add-on to TOS. It requires a minimal
configuration of a 1040ST with a DSDD drive. With TOS/GEM programs taking
up memory space while multitasking, it would be more wise to get a Mega 4
with 60megs+, and probably other addons like speedup programs and hardware
accelerators (could apply to other OSs also).
MTcsh strives for compatibility with both TOS and with Unix. With the
appropriate support software, most Unix applications can be ported over to
MTcsh (my personal Unix compatibility rating - 7.5-8/10).
By keeping compatibility with TOS/GEM programs, much of the software already
written is still useful under this multi-OS environment. There is some
disadvantage to this because some software isn't written in mind for MTcsh,
so it might sooner or later crash under MTcsh. Also, since MTcsh is more
TOS than Unix, the deficiencies of TOS are also kept - twelve character
filenames and "\" filename separator for changing directories is still used,
rather than the longer Unix filenames and "/".
(Things to keep in mind when porting Unix stuff over to the MTcsh.)
Yet MTcsh is still quite reliable, has a lot of software designed especially
for it (UUCP, Visual Shell interface, etc) so it is able to approach the
functionality of Unix on a much smaller scale. Support from the company is
excellent.
MTcsh is $129.95 US and is available from:
Beckemeyer Development Tools, 478 Santa Clara Ave., Oakland, CA 94610
415-452-1129 (voice), 415-452-4792 (bbs),
david@bdt.UUCP (David Beckemeyer)
OS-9/68000 version 2.3 (herein referred to as 'OS-9')
----------------------
(John Clark has used OS-9 for two years, while Avygdor Moise has used it for
seven years, and with three years on the Atari ST version.)
OS-9 is both multitasking and multiuser. It can run on a 520ST with a SSDD
drive, but works best with a 20meg to 30meg hd, and with maybe 2 megs of RAM.
For Unix compatibility, vanilla flavored C code is usually ok to port to OS-9.
There is a PD/Shareware "unix" support library which has more of the typical
'Unix SYSV/BSD" functions. But any Unix code which has 'fork' or 'vfork' is
dead. But as John explains, it "can be revived by major shock treatment". :-)
Avygdor mentions that on the C level, it's "99.9 compatible" with Unix, while
on the OS level, it's "1:1 correspondence, but not directly comparable".
There is no, virtual memory management (for 68020/PMMU, 68030). As mentioned
before, you would probably need to supplement the Microware Lib's with PD
stuff in order to port Unix code more "easily". The command shell stinks, but
there's hope, and at the moment, there's not enough user utilities.
OS-9 is cheaper than Unix, and its drivers/low level OS interface are simpler.
Drivers can be dynamically loaded and unloaded (need to be loaded before and
during use). OS-9 is also used for CD-I, Computer Disk Interactive. This is
a CD-ROM with programs to access the data. The idea is a box with all the
data, programs, and processor available cheap enough to be purchased by the
large consumer electronic buying public.
Overall, OS-9 has the Unix feeling, it has rommable code, it's different, it
operates in real time, and of course its small, fast, and simple.
OS-9 is a good solid OS, and it never crashes the system.
A very worthwhile, solid development tool.
OS-9 is available from:
Microware, 1900 N.W. 114th St. Des Moines Iowa, 50332, (515)-224-1929
(West Cost Sales Office (408)-980-0201)
Prices:
$150 US for "OS-9 Personal" (only has BASIC)
$400-$600 US for "OS-9 Professional" (has C and assemblers, linkers, etc).
--
George Ng (Computer Science, Univ. of Toronto) | "Sure, I would like Canadian
UUCP: uunet!mnetor!{becker,hybrid}!spocom!gng | winters too...if it weren't
or utgpu!ncrcan!ziebmef!spocom!gng | for the weather."don@col.hp.com (Don Allison) (11/15/89)
Here's the gist of the reply I tried to mail to George (which died on our mail server--couldn't figure out how to get to him): (By the way I'm glad to hear that SOMEONE has had a good experience with MT C-shell and Beckemeyer...it's almost encouraged me to dig it out and try it again, given the amount of money I've invested in it) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- I purchased everything that Beckemeyer put out for a while (C-shell, MT C-shell, Micro C tools, RTX, ansiterm, vsh, etc, etc...) and upgraded every time I got a notice of a new version. I spent a lot of money on their products, in general, and my overall impression in the end was unfavorable to the point that I no longer have MT C-shell vsh, ansiterm, etc on my hard disk (I do use some of the utilities from the c toolkit (whatever it was called) with Gulam). It's been a while, but some of the things I discovered were 1)bad documentation, especially the lousy installation instructions (after installing it and starting multiuser mode, my modem went into permanent off-hook...turns out I wanted to run single user multitasking but they were expecting a login from the rs-232 port and were running a getty, which was in an infinite loop echoing to the modem which was echoing to the getty, which was...this was not documented anywhere, I got lucky and finally figured out how to permanently kill the getty), 2) non-UNIXlike operation (in trying to fix the previous problem, I did an init 1, wanting to go to single user multitasking...unfortunately that was single user single tasking, and things like piping to lp no longer worked! :-( I was not pleased.), 3) generally slow, sluggish feel, 4) a lot of utilities I had come to know and expect in a unix-like environment missing (this was really frustrating, because just about the time I'd convince myself that maybe it could be a useful development environment, I'd try something simple only to find that that feature wasn't implemented), and worst of all, 5) the system kept crashing when I tried to do almost ANYTHING (ESPECIALLY vsh! This was the most frustrating thing and was the point where I gave up and cleaned the stuff off my hard drive--I tossed Ansiterm earlier when it didn't do the binary file transfers it advertised it would, that were the reason I'd purchased it...I even reinstalled it from the floppy and read and followed the directions in the manual :-) and it didn't work!). My experience (and what I have heard from friends) indicates that if you want a cheap unix-like environment, buy a PC and MKS-Toolkit...this is single tasking but does support pipes, etc, and feels WONDERFULLY like unix! It has vi, awk, grep, etc, etc--all the things you know and love. If you really want multitasking, consider using MINIX (I have friends who are having fun playing with it, personally I have never used it on an ST so I can't speak from experience here) along with the Free Software Foundation tools--c compiler, flex, bison, emacs, etc. These are just my opinions and impressions, I'd be interested in hearing what others tell you about their experiences. Don Allison don@hp-col.col.hp.com (One other frustrating thing was that when they announced on-line manual pages, I immediately sent them an order, along with a check. A few months later, they sent me a notice telling me that I could be a beta tester for the man pages, and if I would agree to use them a predefined amount in the next month I could keep them free--this after they had my check!) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- And on a different note, I was hoping for something like 24 bit color in the TT! Does anyone know how many planes the ATW has? (I requested some information on the ATW at SIGGRAPH this year, but haven't heard anything yet). Don Allison don@hp-col.col.hp.com As usual, these opinions are strictly my own, and even I disavow them on alternate days!
gng@spocom.UUCP (11/20/89)
In article <370003@col.hp.com> don@col.hp.com (Don Allison) writes: >Here's the gist of the reply I tried to mail to George (which died on our >mail server--couldn't figure out how to get to him): Hmm...must be because I'm a newly-established uucp-only leaf node running under MT C-Shell with it's own uucp? :-) No internet-style addresses yet :-( >(By the way I'm glad to hear that SOMEONE has had a good experience with >MT C-shell and Beckemeyer...it's almost encouraged me to dig it out and >try it again, given the amount of money I've invested in it) I'm also surprised to finally see someone on Usenet who uses MT C-Shell (well, at least previously :-). David Beckemeyer is here on Usenet also so you should be able to contact him with any problems (david@bdt.UUCP). I'd be willing to give you some help if you like in hopefully getting your system set up again with mtcsh. (let's do email shall we?) >I purchased everything that Beckemeyer put out for a while (C-shell, MT Csh, >Micro C tools, RTX, ansiterm, vsh, etc, etc.) and upgraded every time I got >a notice of a new version. I spent a lot of money on their products, in >general, and my overall impression in the end was unfavorable to the point >that I no longer have MT C-shell vsh, ansiterm, etc on my hard disk (I do >use some of the utilities from the c toolkit (whatever it was called) with >Gulam). I too purchased just about everything from Beckemeyer (about $300-400 Cdn!) including HD Sentry (I'm planning to also get HD Toolkit from them - comments on this?). At first, I had problems with installing stuff like uucp and also some of the documentation is skimpy at times. But luckily enough, I referred myself to the standard unix doc's from third-party sources...and it's still on my hd ;-) (but I have only about 5megs left on my 16meg mtcsh partition!) >...(stuff about skimpy docs deleted)... >starting multiuser mode, my modem went into permanent off-hook...turns out >I wanted to run single user multitasking but they were expecting a login >from the rs-232 port and were running a getty, which was in an infinite >loop echoing to the modem which was echoing to the getty, which was...this was >not documented anywhere, I got lucky and finally figured out how to >permanently kill the getty), 2) non-UNIXlike operation (in trying to fix >the previous problem, I did an init 1, wanting to go to single user >multitasking...unfortunately that was single user single tasking, and >things like piping to lp no longer worked! :-( I was not pleased.), Hmm...I'm using mtcsh 1.2 and I don't find that 'getty-echoing' (?) problem you mentioned...yes, the problem of not being about to spool to the printer when running init1 is sort of dumb...but oh well...I use init2 most of the time anyhow. >3) generally slow, sluggish feel, 4) a lot of utilities I had come to know and >expect in a unix-like environment missing (this was really frustrating, >... Ahh, but after using Minix for a bit, I immediately went back to mtcsh! If you think mtcsh is slow (which I believe it really isn't that slow at all) , Minix is even worse (and I couldn't even install it onto my hd - trashed a 16meg partition in the process - luckily it was empty but I couldn't use it after...but that's another story :-). Well, I had to do a bit of software-searching on bdt's bbs, other bbs's, and more recently, Usenet and it's archive-servers (atari st, unix, etc) in order to supplement the not-too-many utilities included in mtcsh. >...and worst of all, 5) the system kept >crashing when I tried to do almost ANYTHING (ESPECIALLY vsh! This was Well, for me not really almost ANYTHING but some things! After all, we're working with a 68000 with has no memory protection and some of the regular tos/gem prgs out there aren't really well...programmed well. The only problem I came across in vsh was when I tried to save the parameters of how the windows were positioned/located - it would crash if I tried to boot it up after that. I mentioned it to David and he promptly fixed in a matter of weeks... >My experience (and what I have heard from friends) indicates that if you >want a cheap unix-like environment, buy a PC and MKS-Toolkit...this is >single tasking but does support pipes, etc, and feels WONDERFULLY like >unix! It has vi, awk, grep, etc, etc--all the things you know and love. I heard some pretty good things about that also - their ads in Byte also prove mks-toolkit to be very complete and well-thought out...alas, that's in the pc world...we'll have to do with what we have on the ST... >If you really want multitasking, consider using MINIX (I have friends >who are having fun playing with it, personally I have never used it on Fun? Playing with 'that'? :-) No way...as I said before, it's slow and there are installation problems on hd's. It might be ok for the serious unix hobbyist but not for the guy who wants to use most of his tos/gem stuff (given that it won't crash under mtcsh) and multitask without the hassle of recompiling half of the kernel in order to make things work to some extent.... >an ST so I can't speak from experience here) along with the Free Software >Foundation tools--c compiler, flex, bison, emacs, etc. Turns out that flex, bison, and emacs is available for the ST, and it runs under mtcsh 'cause I have 'em! I hear the gnu c compiler doesn't work because of gnu-c not recognizing environment variables declared through mtcsh, but I use Mark Williams C (3.0.5) and it works fine along with those other gnu utilities. >These are just my opinions and impressions, I'd be interested in hearing >what others tell you about their experiences. I haven't heard from other mtcsh users yet. I've seen some on the bdt bbs but with long-distance charges cropping up for me as they always are, I don't usually call bdt bbs that much. Those and other users should be able to get on some sort of public access unix system and be able to view comp.sys.atari.st and hopefully share their thoughts... >(One other frustrating thing was that when they announced on-line manual >pages, I immediately sent them an order, along with a check. A few >months later, they sent me a notice telling me that I could be a beta >tester for the man pages, and if I would agree to use them a predefined >amount in the next month I could keep them free--this after they had >my check!) That's strange...I ordered the online manual along with rtx, vsh, hd sentry, sds, uucp, and the mtcsh 1.2 upgd with no problems whatsoever....hmmm... >And on a different note, I was hoping for something like 24 bit color in the TT! >Does anyone know how many planes the ATW has? (I requested some information on >the ATW at SIGGRAPH this year, but haven't heard anything yet). Speaking of graphics, does anyone have more information/address of JRI's 4096 chip thingamajig? Just like how spectrum/quantumpaint is able to pull off 512-3375 (or even 4096?) colours from the regular ST setup, wouldn't it then be possible to display 4096-27000 colours? (ratio!) Just a thought... Also, I would like to get the addresses/info. on the companies that produce add-on graphic boards for the ST - I've heard of one called Image Systems or something, and one company also in Europe... >Don Allison >don@hp-col.col.hp.com > >As usual, these opinions are strictly my own, and even I disavow them on >alternate days! -- George Ng (Computer Science, Univ. of Toronto) | "Sure, I would like Canadian UUCP: uunet!mnetor!{becker,hybrid}!spocom!gng | winters too...if it weren't or utgpu!ncrcan!ziebmef!spocom!gng | for the weather."
mark@rpp386.cactus.org (Mark Lehmann) (11/21/89)
I just ordered MINIX today. Got it through a Book Store called "BOOKSTOP" which gives its members a 20% discount on products purchased there. Is MINIX really that bad. You make it sound like the worst kludge you ever saw. I wanted MINIX for multiuser, multitasking? Does it really destroy the hard drive? Is it compatible with the TOS file partitioning, or am I stuck to MINIX only when I install it on my hard drive. I was hoping to be able to use MINIX from one boot up and TOS from another boot up. Of course not running both OP/SYS simultaneously. From being a UNIX administrator, I am use to re-compiling the kernel. Is it really as tough as you say it is? The second reason that I am purchasing MINIX is to learn how to write operating systems. People have told me that MINIX is well supported. Thanks for the previous comments and any comments that you wish to append to this message. Mark Lehmann -- +------------------------------------+-----------------------------------+ | Mark Lehmann | | | mark@rpp386.cactus.org | | | {bigtex|texbell}!rpp386!mark | |
gng@spocom.UUCP (11/22/89)
In <17337@rpp386.cactus.org> mark@rpp386.UUCP (Mark Lehmann) writes: >Is MINIX really that bad. You make it sound like the worst kludge you >ever saw. I wanted MINIX for multiuser, multitasking? Does it really >destroy the hard drive? Is it compatible with the TOS file partitioning, >or am I stuck to MINIX only when I install it on my hard drive. I was >hoping to be able to use MINIX from one boot up and TOS from another >boot up. Of course not running both OP/SYS simultaneously. I'm sorry if I sounded too emphatic over the installation problem of MINIX/ST. The reason I had problems installing it was mainly due to my Supra adapter on my hard drive. There have been other reported problems of this from other Atari ST Minix users also, so remember, I'm not the only one with a small grudge against Minix. But of course, the majority of those who buy Minix usually get it to work - now if I can only get my hands on an ICD adapter. :-) Well, not getting the installation didn't exactly "destroy" my hard drive - it made the partition to which I tried to install Minix unworkable and I couldn't reformat or zero out the partition in order to make it be used for regular TOS/GEM - therefore, in order to make it working again I had to reformat the entire drive (strange huh?). (BTW, any Minix/ST users out there able to get Minix working with Supra adapters?) I believe if you use the proper adapter (ICD, Berkeley Microsystems, Atari's) it should work, if I remember correctly from a 'compatibility' text file that A. Tanenbaum sent me but have since forgotten where I've put it. :-( Once you install Minix on a partition, I believe you can only access it from running Minix only. Minix, like Unix has it's own file structure with different lengths for it's filenames and what not so TOS can't access it directly. I believe there is a way to transfer files back and forth between TOS and Minix (a utility perhaps included in your Minix disks?). Oh yes, I learned recently that Minix 1.1 for the ST isn't multiuser - at least not until you get the extra rs-232 drivers of some sort...the IBM version is though. :-( >>From being a UNIX administrator, I am use to re-compiling the kernel. >Is it really as tough as you say it is? Well, I'm not much of a Unix administrator, so that's two viewpoints on the same thing. From what I see, it seems Minix is definitely geared more towards those who have the time getting Minix to work properly and reliably (and those who have a good Unix knowledge). But there's always MT C-shell, and hey, OS9 too! Heh heh... >The second reason that I am purchasing MINIX is to learn how to write >operating systems. People have told me that MINIX is well supported. Indeed it is well supported, especially in comp.os.minix. I did however remember seeing a few msgs in which some users were discouraged in porting Minix/ST over to other 68k-based systems because of Minix' use of the 'null' value/pointers/etc, and then they started arguing over the commercial value, and therefore the educational value of Minix, etc. Sorta like what's happening on comp.sys.atari.st with all this bashing eh? :-) Overall, I would say Minix is good - I've used it on a friend's Mega 2 with ICD hd and it really worked. I guess I'm one of the few frustrated users just trying to get the darn thing to install on my hd! (believe me, I've tried...and I had help from my friends also...no luck) >Thanks for the previous comments and any comments that you wish to append >to this message. You're welcome. Unlike what I had to go through, I truly hope Minix works well for you. >|Mark Lehmann | | >|mark@rpp386.cactus.org | | >|{bigtex|texbell}!rpp386!mark | | -- George Ng (Comp. Sci., U of Toronto) |"We're not just doing it for money; uunet!mnetor!{becker,hybrid}!spocom!gng| we're doing it for a s***load of or utgpu!ncrcan!ziebmef!spocom!gng| money!" - Spaceballs
gng@spocom.UUCP (11/23/89)
Here's a recent msg. I received from Ge' Weijers <uunet!sci.kun.nl!ge> although I posted the summary too quickly before I recieved the msg. Thanks! >1) What is the name of the OS and the latest version of it? RTOS V2.2 (I've only got 2.1, but I'm getting 2.2) >2) Is this OS multitasking, multiuser, or both? Both, but users can annoy each other easily. >3) What is the minimal ST hardware (and software if necessary) configuration > for this OS and if possible, the usual/best configuration for it? Runs smoothly in the humblest ST 520 with only a single sided floppy drive. >4) Who is the manufacturer of this OS, and how can they be contacted? > (address, phone, uucp, etc) IF you speak German (no english docs as far as I know of), it is sold by a company called eMedia in Hannover, BRD. I can get more info if you really want to. >5) How much does it cost (at the present time if possible)? DM 270,- (130 $) >6) How long have you been using this OS? A year. >7) On a rating of zero to ten, how Unix compatible is this OS? > (An explanation following it would be nice too) -1. It is TOTALLY different. it's a Real Time Operating System, with a builtin compiler,assembler,linker,task kernel,file system etc. The language compiled is Pearl (tasks & semaphores available, but a syntax you could scare dogs with), but the nice thing is that it all fits into 128K RAM. The same system can be run on a number of single board computers, and give you a complete if clumsy development environment. >8) What strengths prevail in this OS (if possible, compared to others also)? The minimal environment you need to run it. Use an ST (or Amiga) as the development environment, and then copy the linker files to your dedicated computer. Version 2.2 also supports networking, and can read MSDOS floppies. >9) What weaknesses are noticeable in this OS? Very simple command language etc. It's not a Unix look- or workalike. The keyboard tables are German-only. Some zapping required. >10) Other comments about this OS, the makers of it, etc? It works, it gets the job done in little memory. A Modula-2 compiler can be bought these days, at 3 times the cost of the OS. Ge' Weijers -- Ge' Weijers Internet/UUCP: ge@cs.kun.nl Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, (uunet.uu.net!cs.kun.nl!ge) University of Nijmegen, Toernooiveld 1 6525 ED Nijmegen, the Netherlands tel. +3180612483 (UTC-2) -- George Ng (Comp. Sci., U of Toronto) |"We're not just doing it for money; uunet!mnetor!{becker,hybrid}!spocom!gng| we're doing it for a s***load of or utgpu!ncrcan!ziebmef!spocom!gng| money!" - Spaceballs