[comp.os.minix] problem with minix demo

janevert@amice1.stack.urc.tue.nl (Jan Evert van Grootheest) (04/09/91)

Hello,

A few days ago, I downloaded the Minix PC demodisk from ftp.cs.vu.nl (or
is it ftp.vu.cs.nl? ). Anyway, it doesn't work on my machine.
There seem to be too much interrupts from different sources.
The first time (and all after that one) there appeared 'Intel reserved
exception 12' on my screen. That interrupt belongs to com1, if I'm correct,
so I disabled the serial port. Then I got exception 13 and sometimes 
exception 9. Number 13 belongs to the harddisk, so next I removed that from
the box. Wow! now I don't get such an error anymore, but it still doesn't 
work, since it exits with a kernel panic: can't read winc partition table
(something like that at least).
I don't like this, as you might imagine. I reserved the few days after
easter to install Minix. Now I hesitate to buy it (Minix that is). If it
doesn't work, I threw away my money (and I'm just a poor student).
So now, is there a possibility that Minix might work after all?
(Yes, I know, you have the source, fix it yourself. which is not so much
of a problem, but I don't have the sources yet and I also don't know enough
about my system to fix it)
I have an Epson PC+ with 640Kb (very odd machine), WDXT-GEN2 Harddisk
controller, standard MFM. This Epson thing runs dos just very smooth, but
I think there are a few AT 'features' built into it. There is for example 
a real-time-clock available, set-up ram, with battery back-up and a few
obscure bios interrupts (a nice one is 0x18, power down the computer...).

I wonder if someone has encountered such problems before and whatever (s)he
did to fix it.

Thanks, Jan Evert van Grootheest
janevert@stack.urc.tue.nl
S90405184@hsepm1.hse.nl