rat@madnix.UUCP (David Douthitt) (04/06/89)
Over in comp.sys.apple, a lot of people have been upset over Apple's apparent
lack of Apple II support, and have from time to time mentioned the desire
to have a UNIX-based Apple II - and MINIX is usually mentioned.
Is there any way to put Minix onto a 128K Apple IIc or IIe? If not, then
how about the IIgs?
A friend of mine says that MINIX needs 20-bit address capability - of course,
the IIc/IIe (6502 -C02 -802) has only 16-bit addresses max. Of course, the
IIgs has 24-bit addressing (65816).
Thoughts anyone? And maybe someone could pick up the baton? It would
take too much time for me to do...
[david]
--
======== David Douthitt :::: Madison, WI :::: The Stainless Steel Rat ========
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ArpaNet: madnix!rat@cs.wisc.edu {decvax|att}!ugkamins@sunybcs.uucp (John Kaminski) (04/07/89)
In article <592@madnix.UUCP> rat@madnix.UUCP (David Douthitt) writes: > >Over in comp.sys.apple, a lot of people have been upset over Apple's apparent >lack of Apple II support, and have from time to time mentioned the desire >to have a UNIX-based Apple II - and MINIX is usually mentioned. > >Is there any way to put Minix onto a 128K Apple IIc or IIe? If not, then >how about the IIgs? > >A friend of mine says that MINIX needs 20-bit address capability - of course, >the IIc/IIe (6502 -C02 -802) has only 16-bit addresses max. Of course, the >IIgs has 24-bit addressing (65816). > >Thoughts anyone? And maybe someone could pick up the baton? It would >take too much time for me to do... It's not so much that MINIX absolutely needs 20 bits addressing, it's that its size is relatively large for the compiler, linker, etc. used. If you could design an ultra-efficient compiler (or rather code generator part of the compiler), you could conceivably port MINIX to the Apple. Also, as MINIX is implemented, it needs a fairly hefty amount of memory to maintain information about process state, and there are quite a few of them to begin with before you even start a login shell. For example, the handler for each piece of hardware is implemented as a separate process, i.e., the "process IDs" you see when dumping the machine state via the F1 key (this is a debugging aid) shows processes like PRINTER, TTY (terminal or console), WINCHES (Winchester or hard disk), etc. Then there are the basic pieces of the system MM (memory manager) and FS (file system). Also, you see INIT, the parent of all processes on the system. It is what is responsible for giving you your login shells (when the login shell calls exit() to terminate, INIT realizes that one of its children has called exit() and restarts another shell). So you see, it's not so much that you have real poor hardware, it's that the system is inherently rather large and therefore you really need more memory to do what MINIX does (or adapt it to do less; take your pick -- I would not want to lose any of the functionality of MINIX).
henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (04/09/89)
In article <592@madnix.UUCP> rat@madnix.UUCP (David Douthitt) writes: >Is there any way to put Minix onto a 128K Apple IIc or IIe? If not, then >how about the IIgs? The real problem is that only a masochist would try to write a C compiler for the 6502. The 65816 *may* be a bit easier. -- Welcome to Mars! Your | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology passport and visa, comrade? | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu
danw@tekchips.LABS.TEK.COM (Daniel E. Wilson) (04/10/89)
In article <1989Apr9.032455.7088@utzoo.uucp>, henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes: > The real problem is that only a masochist would try to write a C compiler > for the 6502. The 65816 *may* be a bit easier. Only a masochist would do anything with a 6502.
hans@duttnph.UUCP (Hans Buurman) (04/10/89)
In article <1989Apr9.032455.7088@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes: >In article <592@madnix.UUCP> rat@madnix.UUCP (David Douthitt) writes: >>Is there any way to put Minix onto a 128K Apple IIc or IIe? If not, then >>how about the IIgs? >The real problem is that only a masochist would try to write a C compiler >for the 6502. The 65816 *may* be a bit easier. The Dutch 6502 users group, historically called 'Kim Club' seemed to have one at the time I gave up my membership (last December). I think it was being used in a project called Dos65 or so. I do not think they were interested in Minix though. Hans ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hans Buurman | hans@duttnph.UUCP Pattern Recognition Group | Faculty of Applied Physics | mcvax!hp4nl!dutrun!duttnph!hans Delft University of Technology | tel. 31 - (0) 15 - 78 46 94
paone@aramis.rutgers.edu (Phil Paone) (04/10/89)
> The real problem is that only a masochist would try to write a C compiler > for the 6502. The 65816 *may* be a bit easier. There was a good C compilier for the Atari 800 series about 3 years ago. I have no reason to doubt there would be one for the Apple > -- > Welcome to Mars! Your | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology > passport and visa, comrade? | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu -- Phil Paone attmail!ppaone !rutgers.edu!topaz.edu!ppaone paone@topaz.rutgers.edu
tvf@cci632.UUCP (Tom Frauenhofer) (04/11/89)
In article <1989Apr9.032455.7088@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes: >In article <592@madnix.UUCP> rat@madnix.UUCP (David Douthitt) writes: >>Is there any way to put Minix onto a 128K Apple IIc or IIe? If not, then >>how about the IIgs? >The real problem is that only a masochist would try to write a C compiler >for the 6502. The 65816 *may* be a bit easier. Then the people at Manx (the Aztec C people) must be a bunch of masochists. I have used their Apple II C compiler and found it pretty good, if somewhat slow (that is an understatement). On the other hand, it does come with a nice shell that does a fantastic job of simulating a Bourne shell (complete with redirection - no multitasking, but acceptable given the hardware environment). BTW I was running it on a 1MHz Apple II+ clone. Thomas V. Frauenhofer ...!rutgers!rochester!cci632!ccird7!tvf *or* ...!rochester!cci632!ccird7!frau!tvf *or* ...!rochester!rit!anna!ma!tvf1477 BLOOM: You can't shoot the actors! They're human beings! BIALYSTOCK: Oh Yeah? You ever eat with one?
peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) (04/11/89)
In article <Apr.10.07.16.49.1989.22632@aramis.rutgers.edu>, paone@aramis.rutgers.edu (Phil Paone) writes: > There was a good C compilier for the Atari 800 series about 3 years > ago. I have no reason to doubt there would be one for the Apple "good"? I got both DVC and Deep Blue C for the Atari 800. These were the best ones available, and neither qualifies as "good". They're based on small-C, and really wouldn't cope with Minix. Now Manx had a REAL C compiler for the Apple-II, at least according to their advertisements. -- Peter da Silva, Xenix Support, Ferranti International Controls Corporation. Business: uunet.uu.net!ficc!peter, peter@ficc.uu.net, +1 713 274 5180. Personal: ...!texbell!sugar!peter, peter@sugar.hackercorp.com.
crewman@bucsb.UUCP (JJS) (04/12/89)
In article <3828@tekcrl.LABS.TEK.COM> (Daniel E. Wilson) writes: >In article <1989Apr9.032455.7088@utzoo.uucp> (Henry Spencer) writes: >> The real problem is that only a masochist would try to write a C compiler >> for the 6502. The 65816 *may* be a bit easier. > > Only a masochist would do anything with a 6502. I realize this doesn't belong in this newsgroup, but come on now. I've seen games on a 1.8MHz 6502 squeeze more color, graphics, animation, and SPEED out of 16K of code than most programs on my new 12MHz AT can get out of 200K of code. With good programming practices, almost anything can be developed for the 6502, as well as for ANY system. As a matter of fact, the problem I've noticed with Unix workstations with 1.3Mbyte executables and 98 Trillion bytes of virtual memory, is that they allow programmers to be ridiculously sloppy. Every bug fix introduces 5 new bugs. But I must admit: attempting to write a multi-tasking, multi-user operating system on a 3-register 64K machine would not be a good idea. Minix is very compact, but I can't imagine it running on anything less than a PC based on an 80x86, just because of the memory and speed overhead required for multi-tasking. -- JJS
flong@sdsu.UUCP (Fred J. E. Long) (04/12/89)
In article <2441@bucsb.UUCP> crewman@bucsb.bu.edu writes: >In article <3828@tekcrl.LABS.TEK.COM> (Daniel E. Wilson) writes: >>In article <1989Apr9.032455.7088@utzoo.uucp> (Henry Spencer) writes: If I remember correctly, you can't do too much with interrupts on an Apple ][. I don't even think it has any sort of clock, but I could be wrong. -- Fred J. E. Long San Diego State University, San Diego, California 92093 ARPA: flong%midgard@ucscc.ucsc.edu UUCP: ...!ucsd!sdsu!flong
henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (04/13/89)
In article <2441@bucsb.UUCP> crewman@bucsb.bu.edu writes: >But I must admit: attempting to write a multi-tasking, multi-user operating >system on a 3-register 64K machine would not be a good idea. Minix is >very compact, but I can't imagine it running on anything less than a >PC based on an 80x86, just because of the memory and speed overhead >required for multi-tasking. Let us not forget that the first pdp11 Unix ran on a system that had 24KB of memory, no memory management, a processor about the speed of an 8088, and one 512KB hard disk (yes, "K", not "M"). This system supported three word-processing users plus further software development. Dennis Ritchie described this configuration as "trying but successful". -- Welcome to Mars! Your | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology passport and visa, comrade? | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu
APEARSON%WAYNEST1.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu (Patrick B. Haggood) (04/14/89)
I remember a multi-user OS was ported to the Radio Shack Color Computer, uh, OS-9 it was. I've never seen it, but have heard it was unix-like and could multi-task. This on a machine that can only have 64k or so memory, and it *is* 8-bit.... .