[comp.os.minix] V1.3c posting #1 - introduction

ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) (09/28/88)

Well, I am (hopefully) done with 1.3.  There were a lot of changes that
people suggested for 1.3b, so here comes 1.3c.  If nobody complains within
a week or so, I'll send it off to Prentice-Hall and that will be the end of
1.3.  The cdiffs that follow are all relative to 1.3b.  After upgrading
from 1.3b to 1.3c, please keep the full set of 1.3c files on diskette, so
we can use that as a base for diffs during the coming year.  I do not plan
to do 1.4 until I have rewritten my architecture book, something that may take
a year.  I will discuss plans for 1.4 later.

If you are completely lost with 1.1 -> 1.2 -> 1.3a -> 1.3b -> 1.3c now, I will
make an upgrade kit that P-H will sell starting around Dec.  That will simply
be all the 1.3c sources plus the 1.2 compiler binaries and elle.  The 1.3
compiler is identical to the 1.2 compiler.  For those of you who tuned in late,
there is a Pascal compiler as well, available from UniPress and Transmediair
(see the preface of the book for their addresses).  Please don't call P-H
about the upgrade kit until around Dec.  They will be all confused.

The kernel has been modified quite a bit.  I split tty.c into 5 files: tty.h,
ttymaps.h, tty.c, console.c, and rs232.c.  Mostly because I thought the latter
was such a cute name.  I saw the new tty.c from Down Under, but I prefer to
stick with mine.  At least I understand that one (sort of).  Changes and
improvements to it are welcome, but I am not going to throw it away.  
One improvement I'd love to make is throw out all that garbage about EGA 
hardware.  I am somewhat unclear why it got added in the first place.  If the
only reason is to prevent losing RS232 characters during software scrolling,
I hope somebody can attack that problem directly.  I would very much like to
have 2 scrolling algorithms included, toggled by F3:  6845 hardware, and 
software.  This will make the code cleaner.  Any suggestions for making the
whole tty business smaller are worth making.

I hope the extended keyboard is supported properly.  Comments are welcome.

V1.3c should run on the PS/2 model 30.  When booting, type u or d instead of
=.  Feedback on this is very much desired.  I have no idea about other models.
Feedback is sort of desired, but IBM being what it is, I fear the worst.

Index to 1.3c postings
----------------------
P0  - this file
P1  - include 
P2  - lib 
P3  - commands 1 of 3
P4  - commands 2 of 3
P5  - commands 3 of 3
P6  - tools
P7  - doc
P8  - h
P9  - mm
P10 - fs
P11 - kernel 1 of 3
P12 - kernel 2 of 3
P13 - kernel 3 of 3