CONNORTON%HBV@DB1.CC.ROCHESTER.EDU (01/11/90)
Hello everyone... I have two questions: First, what can anyone tell me about MINIX, the public domain UNIX for PC's ? Opinions, comments ? (If it's at all for real, it's so cheap I can't believe it...) Does it run on the Rainbow ? If not, is it difficult to modify the source code ? Second, I'm having trouble with Kermit 2.29 for the Rainbow. It has zippo documentation, and I'm not sure the documentation I have for MSKermit applies. I keep getting messages like "You don't have any disk drives" or "Unrecognized baud rate" even when I'm only going 2400 baud. Thanks... joe connorton P.S my keys to the left of my numeric keypad don't seem to work when I'm using the Rainbow as a terminal (i.e. Help, Do) when I'm using my mainframe editor (an extended version of EVE). Why is that ? Wrong terminal definition ?
GTHEALL@PENNDRLS.UPENN.EDU (George A. Theall) (01/11/90)
> I have two questions: First, what can anyone tell me about MINIX, the >public domain UNIX for PC's ? Opinions, comments ? (If it's at all for real, >it's so cheap I can't believe it...) Does it run on the Rainbow ? If not, is >it difficult to modify the source code ? I do not believe there's currently an implementation of Minix for the Rainbow. There was talk both here and on the Rainbow Echo 2 years ago about doing a port, but I don't know whatever became of it. If you're interested, you could contact Gerry Wheeler (wheels@mks.com) - he had ported QNX to the Rainbow and was interested in Minix. Minix is a teaching tool. Programs are limited to 64K of RAM, I believe, which presents problems when trying to port program from unix to minix. The source code for the operating system itself is indeed available, but I'm sure it does some pretty low-level stuff. It's not clear to me whether you could use the Rainbow's firmware routines - since Minix is a multitasking O/S, code would have to be re-entrant. >Second, I'm having trouble with Kermit >2.29 for the Rainbow. It has zippo documentation, and I'm not sure the >documentation I have for MSKermit applies. I keep getting messages like "You >don't have any disk drives" or "Unrecognized baud rate" even when I'm only >going 2400 baud. Thanks... Is this v2.29.1, a special version for the Rainbow? Dated Jul 4, 86? This is the version which can be ftp'ed from the INFO-DEC-MICRO file archives as KER229A.ZIP in the [.COMM] directory. There's a doc file in there, MSVRB2.DOC. Alternatively, you could grab the same doc file directly from Columbia (Watsun.CC.Columbia.Edu is the host for Kermit distributions). I'm not sure why you're seeing the error messages you report, but I'd look first at your initialization file. The commands were indeed changed significantly between v2.29 and v2.30 for all implementations of MS-Kermit. I'm pretty sure v2.29.1 for the Rainbow also added some extra commands for VT220 support, on-the-fly key redefinitions, fast video routines, etc... I can probably dig up a generic initialization file for v2.29.1 to send to you, but I'd recommend getting the docs first. >P.S my keys to the left of my numeric keypad don't seem to work when I'm using >the Rainbow as a terminal (i.e. Help, Do) when I'm using my mainframe editor >(an extended version of EVE). Why is that ? Wrong terminal definition ? By default, v2.29.1 processes <HELP> and <DO> as internal command keys. If you want them to be used with a mainframe app, you'll need to figure out what escape sequence to send and rebind the keys. The keys in the numeric keyboard *should* work ok if Kermit's using VT102 terminal emulation. There are other types, so this could explain part of your difficulties. George --- BITNET: GTHEALL@PennDRLS Dept. of Economics Internet: GTHEALL@PennDRLS.UPenn.Edu University of Pennsylvania AT+TNet: +1 215 898 3419 Philadelphia, PA 19104-3987