sbm@PURDUE.EDU (01/10/89)
We have just sent the latest version of the non-networking (vol. I)
Macintosh Xinu software to the publisher for distribution. It has
several bug fixes that make it safer to use on a Macintosh II now. The
bug that caused stack overflow when doing output to windows on a
Macintosh II has been fixed, and the startup code that initializes the
Macintosh ROM data structures has been modified to make rebooting Xinu
without restarting the Macintosh more robust.
The Macintosh version of vol. I of the Xinu book will be in the
bookstores very soon, with features I have already described in this
list, including window management, a floppy disk driver, access to the
Macintosh file system, and a recursive shell with background processing
and I/O redirection.
We have now added the network code to the book version of Xinu,
including IP, UDP, rwho, ICMP echo reply, and the Xinu remote file
system. As long as Xinu has been around, the remote file server has run
under UNIX, allowing a machine running Xinu to access UNIX files, but
now we have ported the Xinu remote file server to Xinu, so that
Macintoshes running Xinu can access files on other Macintoshes running
Xinu. We have also modified the remote file device driver so that a
Xinu machine can access files on several different remote machines
(e.g., run a "cp" command on machine A to copy a file from machine B to
machine C). All of this means that internetworking Xinu can do
everything it does, including rwho and remote file access, with
Macintoshes on an AppleTalk network without any gateway or access to
other machines.
If Xinu cannot reach the Internet, it currently makes up its own IP
address and machine name, and gets the time from its local clock chip.
However, we plan to write servers for Xinu that will provide these
services, so that Xinu can boot normally without having a gateway
available. We also plan to make the method Xinu uses to determine its
IP address, machine name, and time configurable.
Steve Munson
sbm@Purdue.EDU
sbm@Purdue.CSNET
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