[comp.os.minix] Possible solution for hard disk for Minix on the Amiga

erd@giza.cis.ohio-state.edu (Ethan R Dicks) (10/04/90)

I have a WEDGE PC/XT I/O card adapter on the Amiga.  There are several
other adapters (SPIRIT-506, Palomax and the like) which map PC-XT disk
controllers into Amiga memory space.  Instead of IO instructions, the
driver for AmigaDOS uses memory access instructions.  I am using a real
DTC-5150 on my A1000 and a real DTC-5160 on the A500.

Is the hard disk driver for PC-Minix written in Assembler, C or both?  If
I buy a license for Amiga-Minix, will I be allowed to port the PC-Minix
driver?  The card is the same, only the individual access instructions
would need to be changed (plus the instruction set, of course ;-)  The logic
flow of the driver would remain intact.

Comments, suggestions?

I was planning on buying Amiga-Minix, but with the MC680x0 restriction
and the bad boot disk, I am glad I have waited so far.  If I can get
hard drive support for minimal effort (I am capable of porting the driver),
that would push me over the edge.

-ethan

raymond@cs.vu.nl (Raymond Michiels) (10/04/90)

erd@giza.cis.ohio-state.edu (Ethan R Dicks) writes:

>Is the hard disk driver for PC-Minix written in Assembler, C or both? If
>I buy a license for Amiga-Minix, will I be allowed to port the PC-Minix
>driver?

The hard disk driver if written in C, and yes: you may port the PC-Minix
driver. You are even encouraged to do so.

>Comments, suggestions?

Buy AmigaMINIX, port the PC-Minix driver and post it to the net...

>I was planning on buying Amiga-Minix, but with the MC680x0 restriction
>and the bad boot disk, I am glad I have waited so far.

The bad boot disk isn't really that much of a problem: we have
include an extra copy of the mangled file (the kernel image) on
the AmigaMINIX boot disk.

	-Raymond.