paulm@tplrd.tpl.oz.au (Paul Merrill) (02/28/91)
Just a further question about minix. I am thinking about getting minix for my 286 AT but am not clear about a couple of points. I know it runs in protected mode but from what I understand the largest program you can write can only have 64K of code and 64K of data. Is this true? I can understand if it does because of the architecture of the 286 but it really does impose a great limitation on the programs you can run. Is there anyway to get around it? Are overlays possible (ugh!)? What about 386s, is there any change? If this limitation is really true then why bother putting the machine in protected mode at all? My machine has 4 Megs but if a program can only access 64+64 doesn't that mean that it will mostly be empty? That is unless I run about a zillion programs in the background. I know the 286 is a dog, but when I bought mine 386's were $7000.00 and unfortunately I had to eat as well. Thanks for any help I can get! Paul Merrill