rogers@ncrcce.StPaul.NCR.COM (Bob Rogers) (10/04/89)
I'm considering buying a PC and am trying to decide if the extra money for a 386 is worth it. Is there currently a version of Minix for the 386/386sx or is one in the works? Thanks. -- ---- Bob Rogers rogers@stpaul.ncr.com or rogers@pnet51.cts.com NCR Comten, St. Paul, MN GEnie: R.C.ROGERS
paula@bcsaic.UUCP (Paul Allen) (10/06/89)
In article <1588@ncrcce.StPaul.NCR.COM> rogers@ncrcce.StPaul.NCR.COM (Bob Rogers) writes: >I'm considering buying a PC and am trying to decide if the extra money >for a 386 is worth it. Is there currently a version of Minix for the >386/386sx or is one in the works? IMHO, what you get with the 386 is the potential to get away from 64K segments. You might be able to get a 286 for a bit less than a 386, but not much less. There's a company here in Bellevue selling 25MHz 386's for $1600 with Hercules monochrome, 1Mb, 65M RLL disk, and serial/parallel ports. I bought one with 4Mb, a 16-bit VGA and color monitor, and extra serial port for $2700 including the 8% tax. Minix runs *real* nice with a 3Mb ramdisk! There's no 386 Minix today, but there will be one. I'm tinkering in my spare time, and I know Bruce Evans has put a lot of thought and time into a real 32-bit 386-based Minix. There are no doubt other hackers out there working on stuff. Since I reached a sort-of milestone last night, perhaps this is a good time to post a status report. I have GNU gcc (1.35), gas (1.34), and ld (May 1, 89) running on my Sun and generating 386 a.out files. Last night, for the first time, I successfully linked two 386 object files to produce an executable. (Of course, it's a BSD-style a.out and I have no place to run it, but hey, what do you want? :-) ) I've merged the disassembler portion of Bruce Evans' 386 debugger into the GNU objdump program. From eye-balling the disassembled a.out file, the only problem I see is that the loader appears to be screwing up the resolution of addresses in calls to external functions. It's probably a byte-order problem. (*All* of the problems so far have been byte-order related. Gcc and gas work fine in a cross-development environment, but ld assumes that it's running on the target machine. :-( ) I may get a chance to look at it this evening. The next step is to build a translator to go from the current BSD a.out format to something more useful and start moving little test programs over to my 386 box. Paul Allen -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Paul L. Allen | pallen@atc.boeing.com Boeing Advanced Technology Center | ...!uw-beaver!bcsaic!pallen
jburnes@pnet02.gryphon.com (Jim Burnes) (10/08/89)
Paul:
I know this shouldnt be in this section, but I don't know how to route
a message directly to you through usenet. I noticed you work at Boeing's
Advanced Technology Center in Seattle. I am seriously considering moving to
Seattle so I thought I'd ask you if Boeing's AI center is hiring? I have
written natural language interpreters in LISP and have interests in neural
networks. I have a BSCS and have been working full time for about 4 years.
Jim Burnes
UUCP: {ames!elroy, <routing site>}!gryphon!pnet02!jburnes
INET: jburnes@pnet02.gryphon.com