culberts@hplwbc.hpl.hp.com (Bruce Culbertson) (11/17/90)
Doug Hosking asked some good questions about pc532 Minix. Since others may have the same questions, I am posting my answers. > ...But that brings up the equally important problem of how > to get Minix onto the beast in the first place. My installation instructions only assume you have a serial port -- they even show how to run Minix without a disk on the pc532. The pc532 monitor has a CRC-protected serial download command which can be used to download a Minix boot image and a file system. The file system can then be written to disk or used as a RAM-disk. Downloading through the serial port is, of course, tedious but I think it is the method which at least ninety percent of the pc532'ers have used. You do need another computer to put on the other end of the serial line. Most people have used IBM-PC's or Unix machines -- most often, the same machine which serves as the terminal for the pc532. Personally, I use an OMTI 5200 SCSI to ST506/floppy controller to attach a pc-compatible 360K floppy to my pc532. The floppy is extremely convenient but few pc532'ers have such a thing. > I saw mention a while ago about a group disk buy, which appeared to > have mixed results due to infant mortality problems. I did not get involved in the disk buy. It is true that many of the disks had problems. However, it is my impression that the supplier promptly replaced all the bad disks and that everyone was satisfied in pretty short order. I believe that there have been no failures among the disks which initially arrived in working order. I use a very slow and small ST-225 which has become unreliable from old age. It is attached via my OMTI controller. I want to get a new disk but would prefer to get a modern, low-power 3.5 inch disk instead of a full height disk like the group-buy Miniscribe. I think only about twenty-five people bought the Miniscribes. There is quite a variety of disks which have been used successfully with pc532-Minix. > Anyone discussing future group buys ? Not that I have heard of. If someone wants to organize a buy, I would like to get something like a 200 megabyte Maxtor LXT-200S. I have too much to do to organize the buy, though. > Re Minix, what's the simplest way to legally get a copy ? I am not really up-to-date on this but I think it is pretty simple. Every month there is an information sheet posted to comp.os.minix with complete details. Some book stores carry it; most can order it. You can order, yourself, by telephone and maybe by e-mail. You do not need to buy the book (though you might find the book useful). > Is it possible to boot minix solely from floppy ? Absolutely though, as I mentioned, even a floppy is not necessary. > ...don't have easy access to other machines for disk formatting, This is true of many pc532'ers. I think most disks arrive formatted. For those that do not, the usual impediment is getting adequate documentation from the disk manufacturer. The monitor has a command that lets you send a "raw" SCSI command out on the SCSI bus. This lets you do pretty much anything to a SCSI device, provided you know how to format the command. Bruce Culbertson