ferris@tcville.HAC.COM (02/02/89)
Is there any development being done on porting minix to the mac? I would very much like to be able to experiment around with minix, but the mac is what I have at home (and where experimentation goes on). Mark Ferris ferris@tcville.hac.com Image and Signal Processing Lab ferris%tcville@hac2arpa.hac.com Hughes Aircraft Co., EDSG
archetyp@uxh.cso.uiuc.edu (Joseph R Pickert) (11/16/89)
MINIX for the Apple MACINTOSH MINIX, a UNIX V7 clone that runs on the IBM PC, Atari ST, and Amiga has now been ported to the Apple Macintosh. The system is described in detail (including a 250-page listing of the complete source code, in C) in the book: Title: Operating Systems: Design and Implementation Author: Andrew S. Tanenbaum Publisher: Prentice-Hall ISBN: 0-13-637406-9 We are now discussing the possibility of having Prentice-Hall sell the Macintosh version, as they do the IBM and Atari ones (Amiga is also under discussion). If they say yes, it will be available for around $100, including all the source code on diskette. If they say no, we write it off under the heading "you win some, you lose some" and throw it away. They have already definitively vetoed the idea of giving it away or having a third party sell it, since this might cause legal and other problems with the version they are really interested in, for the PC (and AT, 386, etc.) A GNU-type solution is not acceptable to them. Their hesitancy comes from their perception that the Macintosh market for this product is very small. A brief description of MINIX follows. Please note that this software does not run in place of your current Macintosh software, but rather in ADDITION to it. See below for more details. If you would have an interest in buying it, or you are a college professor and would be interested in reviewing the program for Prentice-Hall or using it for a course on operating systems, please respond to the electronic mail address specified at the end of this message. If we can collect hundreds of names and (postal) addresses of potential customers, maybe we can convince them it is worth doing. Otherwise the future of MINIX will be the 386/486. What is MINIX? MINIX is an operating system that is compatible with version 7 of the UNIX operating system. MINIX comes complete with ALL the source code to the full operating system and all the utility programs; source to the C compiler and compiler tools are also available. MINIX is NOT public domain; it is copyrighted by the Prentice-Hall publishing company. MINIX features: * System call compatible with V7 of the UNIX operating system. * Full multiprogramming (many programs can run at once) * Kernighan and Ritchie compatible C compiler * Shell that is functionally identical to the Bourne shell * Emacs-style, multi-window full-screen editor * Over 120 utilities (cat, cp, ed, grep, ls, make, roff, sort, etc.) * Over 140 library procedures (atoi, fork, malloc, read, stdio, etc.) Additional MINIX for the Macintosh features: * MULTIFINDER compatible. * HARD DISK support. * SERIAL LINE support with terminal emulation. * VT100 virtual terminals in Macintosh windows. Future features: * IEEE Standard P1003.1 compatibility (POSIX) * [Maybe] ANSI Standard C Description of MacMINIX MacMINIX operates on any Macintosh (Mac Plus, Mac SE, or Mac II) with at least 1 megabyte of memory and a hard disk. [To compile large programs, you may need more memory]. To the native Macintosh Operating System, MacMINIX is just another application. Your Desk Accessories, Inits, and other software will continue to function as before. If you use MultiFinder, MacMINIX will run in its own Multifinder partition, allowing you to run your other Macintosh programs concurrently. MacMINIX provides a window for each tty device, and text can be cut and pasted in and between windows. Other "standard" Macintosh windowing operations (scrolling, hiding, moving, etc) are also supported. MacMINIX comes with all the tools included with the PC version. This includes (but is not limited to) the following: animals, ar, ascii, at, atrun, banner, basename, cal, cat, cc, cdiff chgrp, chmem, chmod, chown, clr, cmp, comm, compress, cp, cpdir, crc, cron, date, dd, df, diff, du, echo, ed, expr, factor, fgrep, file, find, fix, getlf, grep, gres, head, help, kill, ln, login, lpr, ls, make, mined, mkdir, mkfs, mknod, more, mount, mv, od, passwd, paste, pr, prep, printenv, pwd, readall, readfs, rev, rm, rmdir, roff, sed, sh, shar, size, sleep, sort, split, strings, stty, su, sum, sync, tail, tar, tee, term, termcap, test, time, touch, tr, traverse, treecmp, tset, tsort, tty, umount, uniq, update, uudecode, uuencode, vol, wc, who, whoami In addition, many more tools (ash, uemacs, jove, uucp, mail, less, to name a few) have been made available in the comp.os.minix newsgroup. For more information, see the book cited above or read the comp.os.minix newsgroup on USENET. This is an active newsgroup, with all kinds of discussions about MINIX. About 7000 messages have been posted to it in 3 years. If you think you might want to buy MacMINIX, or are a professor who might use want to review it or use it for a course, please send Your name Your postal (i.e. snail mail) address Your email address Your telephone number to: archetyp@uxh.cso.uiuc.edu Followups and discussion should go to comp.os.minix. Joe Pickert Andy Tanenbaum
ka2czu@cbnewsh.ATT.COM (robert.switzer) (11/16/89)
From article <1989Nov15.233227.24597@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>, by archetyp@uxh.cso.uiuc.edu (Joseph R Pickert): > Followups and discussion should go to comp.os.minix. > > Joe Pickert > Andy Tanenbaum Since small number of copies are permissible for educational purposes, is it possible to distribute the MACMINIX version IF the recipient ALREADY has purchased a PC version? That is, even if P-H doesn't want to incur the cost, someone else should be able to provide the modified, educational, MAC version. I don't think this is infringing on their copyrights. At worst, one could envision distributing "patch" (yechhh) files. Just a thought. -- Robert Switzer (201)949-0057 AT&T, Crawford Corner Rd. Rm. HO2K318, Holmdel, NJ 07733
ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) (11/17/89)
In article <5817@cbnewsh.ATT.COM> ka2czu@cbnewsh.ATT.COM (robert.switzer) writes: >That is, even if P-H doesn't want to incur the cost, someone else should be able to >provide the modified, educational, MAC version. The cost is not entirely the issue. P-H is gradually beginning to see that MINIX might be valuable in some sense. They don't want to sanction any distribution other than what the shrink-wrap license allows, since that muddies their rights. Either they do it or it gets killed. MINIX legal issues have come up so often that they actually hired a lawyer to deal with this and similar issues. Her first reaction was "no copying" but I argued against that saying that it was actually in P-H's economic interest to allow a little bit. I wanted to allow 3 copies of each original. She grudgingly said "Ok, 1 copy." We compromised on two. Starting in a couple of months, the shrink wrap license will say what you can and cannot do with MINIX. I actually got her to write this part in English, not in ISO Lawyer Standard 4520.7(b)iii sub 3a bis. It will say "The purchaser is permitted to make 2 backup copies of the software." If you want to give them to your friends, that is up to you. They can't make further backups. While enforcing this is not real easy :-) this is a lot more liberal than the license that comes with, say, Word Perfect or Lotus. And for the first time it is in black and white in a fairly unambigous way. In addition, faculty members at bona fide educational institutions are permitted to make unlimited copies for use in teaching or research at their institutions. Companies that want to make > 10 copies for whatever purpose can negotiate a site license with P-H. I will, of course, continue to post cdiffs of everything except the compiler to the net. She doesn't know about it, and probably wouldn't believe me if I told her that I talk to 16,000 people every day. I hope this doesn't start a flame storm. Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl)
shino@qip.UUCP (Rei Shinozuka) (11/17/89)
In article <1989Nov15.233227.24597@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> archetyp@uxh.cso.uiuc.edu (Joseph R Pickert) writes: > > MINIX for the Apple MACINTOSH I have always been fascinated by the concept of MINIX and I would buy it tomorrow for the Mac. (I've even considered the possibility of a PC just to run MINIX). However, our mailer is brain damaged. Any way for me to send my vote in via snail-mail? thanks, -rei
ianf@nada.kth.se (Ian Feldman) (11/17/89)
My interest in Minix awakened following the announcement of the existence of a MacMinix. It would be intersting to hear Andy Tanenbaum tell a little more of the present implementation as well as of the motivation for making it into a Macintosh application instead of an alternative to the Mac OS and the Finder. I'd also like to know the answers to following questions: 1 Does the Minix distribution include an Emacs-clone or similar 2 Is microEmacs 3.10 compatible with it 3 Is there now a mail package (there was none last time I asked) 4 Has someone actually implemented a news-feed to a Minix machine 5 NNTP -- is it asking too much? 6 What Macintosh-hardware limitations are there for Minix use (will it run without a hard drive?). Also: what about its speed, I hear that Minix isn't the fastest of the operating systems around (not being designed for speed, either) 7 If possible I'd like to see a full list of all the utilities that have been tested and will be available together with the MacMinix. BTW: well done, Andy! (and whoever else that made it possible) -- ---- ------ ianf@nada.kth.se/ @sekth.bitnet/ uunet!nada.kth.se!ianf ---- --
hui@joplin.mpr.ca (Michael Hui) (11/17/89)
I suppose MacMinix will interface to the user via the classic tty stream only. If that's the case, it might even be possible to hook up a cheap terminal to the Mac's serial port and run Minix off that, while the graphics screen is dedicated to "normal" Mac applications.
archetyp@uxh.cso.uiuc.edu (Joseph R Pickert) (11/21/89)
> I suppose MacMinix will interface to the user via the classic tty stream > only. If that's the case, it might even be possible to hook up a cheap > terminal to the Mac's serial port and run Minix off that, while the > graphics screen is dedicated to "normal" Mac applications. Yes, but you can also make Macintosh OS calls from within MINIX applications. I have done this, but you have to be fairly careful. Since the roms are non-reentrant, MINIX can't switch away from the application until the call completes. Maybe Apple will fix this some day.
archetyp@uxh.cso.uiuc.edu (Joseph R Pickert) (11/21/89)
> ianf@nada.kth.se writes: > ...motivation for making it into a Macintosh application instead of > an alternative to the Mac OS and the Finder. Well, there were several reasons for this. The most important is that Apple is pretty tight-lipped about how their hardware operates. I decided up front that a standalone operating system for the Macintosh would be virtually impossible without the cooperation of Apple or the investment of an enormous amount of time. Apple's cooperation was not very likely, especially at the level I would need. And I am only one person, so time was at a premium. So I decided on this approach. Like most decisions, this one has had its disadvantages as well as its advantages. In retrospect, I would say that the advantages have far outweighed the disadvantages, and that having UNIX and my Macintosh programs run simultaneously is a very desirable thing for me. > 1 Does the Minix distribution include an Emacs-clone or similar I doubt an emacs person would consider the editor that comes with MINIX to be a clone, but I'm not really an emacs user, so I guess the answer is I don't know. > 2 Is microEmacs 3.10 compatible with it Yes, I have compiled and used microEmacs under MacMINIX (I think it was 3.10, but I'm not sure). Also, an awful lot of vanilla UNIX programs are compatible with MacMINIX. More than I think a lot of people would guess. And when I say compatible, I mean I did not have to modify the source beyond setting up the configuration information. This includes most of the GNU stuff (C, C++, bawk, bison, etc) and a fair amount of stuff I have pulled from the net (ash, flex, smail, etc.) > 3 Is there now a mail package (there was none last time I asked) Yes, uupc and a mail program have been posted in comp.os.minix. These run just fine under MacMINIX. > 4 Has someone actually implemented a news-feed to a Minix machine I don't know. Can anyone else answer this? > 5 NNTP -- is it asking too much? Again, I don't know. Anyone else? > 6 What Macintosh-hardware limitations are there for Minix use > (will it run without a hard drive?). Also: what about its speed, > I hear that Minix isn't the fastest of the operating systems around > (not being designed for speed, either) Currently you need a hard disk to operate, but that is only because I haven't tried to make it run on a floppy only system. I would expect that the actual distribution will do this. Otherwise, there are no limitations. It runs on or with everything I have tried. As for speed, that is a pretty tough question to answer, as it depends highly on your yard stick. People are strange, and I have given MacMINIX to people who were terribly disappointed because it didn't somehow magically transform their little 68000 running at 8MHz into a 68020 or 68030 running at 16 or 33MHz, like the Sun they use at work or school. On my Mac IIcx, the drystones are comparable to a Sun 3/50. It takes about the same amount of real time to compile and execute a fairly large program on both. I can drive them both into ground by compiling a few things simultaneously. In this sense, MacMINIX is exactly as fast (or slow) as I would expect. Is this what you mean by performance? If you have a program that produces some specific metric or metrics that mean something to you, I will be happy to run it and post the results. Otherwise, I really don't know how to address this question. > 7 If possible I'd like to see a full list of all the utilities that > have been tested and will be available together with the MacMinix. It's a little premature to try to answer this question. I think the stuff that comes with 1.3 IBM version would comprise a fairly accurate list. Joe Pickert
andyb@hasvcr.UUCP (Andy Babinszki) (11/21/89)
I simply want to put in my two bits ( bytes? ) worth and say that I'm very
happy to hear that MacMINIX may soon be available. I would buy it today if it
were available ( actually I'd like to trade in my PC version for it! ). Rather
than dedicating a PC to running MINIX ( I would have to buy one for that
purpose since I use only a Mac at home ), I could run MINIX as an application
under Multifinder! It's a dream come true! I hope many others feel the same
way and that Prentice - Hall takes note. I wouldn't want this one to end up
in the circular file due to perceived lack of interest.
--
Andy Babinszki "Hello, hello?": (604) 664 4597
uucp: andyb@hasvcr.wimsey.bc.camadd@world.std.com (jim frost) (11/22/89)
Excuse me if this has been talked about before, since I missed it, but I'm terribly interested in MacMINIX. What is the minimum hardware configuration that MacMINIX will work with? By this I mean memory, MacOS version (you said it ran as a Mac application, right?) etc. I remember that you said you need a hard disk, but this is only one possible limitation. What compiler are you using for MacMINIX? Is one supplied? Can gcc work with it? How do you support disks (raw devices? through MacOS calls? as a MacOS file with a filesystem inside it?) What about periferal support (printer, modem, etc)? I'm more interested in the "how" than the "do", since if I get the thing I'm going to hack the hell out of it, adding whatever I need, but I'm interested in how you are currently handling such things. How do you support the terminal? I assume you just open a Mac window and use it as a terminal. What kind of limitations are there on user program size? I assume there aren't any other than physical memory (as with the ST version, right?) but I'd like to know for sure. If it's indeed running as a MacOS application, how well does it deal with multifinder and minifinder? I'm really curious. I've been thinking about buying a machine to do OS work on and was considering building a version of MINIX that did VM on a 386 machine (64k limits are, well, limiting), but I have a Mac already so news of a Mac version really excites me. Thanks for any replies, jim frost software tool & die madd@std.com
mcdan@dtg.nsc.com (Eric McDaniel) (11/22/89)
In article <188@hasvcr.UUCP> andyb@hasvcr.UUCP (Andy Babinszki) writes: > >I simply want to put in my two bits ( bytes? ) worth and say that I'm very >happy to hear that MacMINIX may soon be available. I would buy it today if it >were available ( actually I'd like to trade in my PC version for it! ). Rather > etc etc.... Attention Prentice-Hall: I, too, would buy this today if it were available. Sorry to post about this, but I lost the mail voting address. -- Eric McDaniel mcdan@dtg.nsc.com
hui@joplin.mpr.ca (Michael Hui) (11/22/89)
One important question: how would the files be handled? One MacOS folder for the "root"? Or will the MacOS's hierarchy be preserved (or visible) under Minix? I strongly prefer the latter, since we can always use the common Mac editors on source code, and move to the Minix tty window to start the make and compile process.
gall@yunexus.UUCP (Norm Gall) (11/24/89)
When can we expect some sort of answer from P-H about MacMinix ditribution??? I have a VISA card burning a hole in my wallet just DYING to be rung through P-H's card machine (even by proxy)!!! Norm (mix those metaphors) Gall -- "Philosophy is not the underlabourer of the sciences but rather their tribunal; it adjudicates not the truth of scientific theorizing, but the sense of scientific propositions." -- PMS Hacker
pollock@ziggy.EDU (Wayne Pollock) (11/29/89)
Will MACMINIX run under the new System 7 software? I'm especially
curious if it will run under the new virtual memory system.
Is there any PostScript printer support (that is, will I be able to print
the output of *roff, etc., to a laser printer connected to my mac?
Also, assuming someday P-H will publish this, could someone either post or
mail me a list of anonymous ftp sites where patchs, enhancments (uucp, rn,
etc.) can be down-loaded from? I don't require ftp, any dial up site will
do (ftp is fastest though). Are these archives available in GEnie or some
other information service? In short, where can an average joe like myself
get this stuff from?
Wayne Pollock (The MAD Scientist) pollock@usfvax2.csee.usf.edu
Usenet: ...!{gatech!uflorida!}usfvax2!pollock
GEnie: W.POLLOCKshino@qip.UUCP (Rei Shinozuka) (12/01/89)
In article <5403@yunexus.UUCP> gall@yunexus.UUCP (Norm Gall) writes: >When can we expect some sort of answer from P-H about MacMinix >ditribution??? I have a VISA card burning a hole in my wallet just >DYING to be rung through P-H's card machine (even by proxy)!!! Me too! Release of MacMinix will signal the death knell of the last possible excuse to get a PC over a Mac. :-) Count me in for a copy! -rei
nugent@gargoyle.uchicago.edu (Todd Nugent) (04/12/90)
I am teaching an introductory operating systems course this quarter using Tannenbaum's MINIX book, which, by the way, I think is excellent. I would like to use MINIX on the Macintosh because we have a lot of them, but I understand from Prentice Hall that they will not be shipping the Mac version of MINIX until June. Knowing how long it takes publishing companies to prepare and market things, this implies to me that MINIX for the Mac is finished and I'm just waiting for PH to do the packaging. Since this class will be over by June, is there anywhere that I can get a copy of MINIX for the Mac before then? -- -- Todd Nugent Preferred: nugent@gargoyle.uchicago.edu Also: nugent@chinet.chi.il.us