*BSD News Article 14928


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From: groot@idca.tds.philips.nl (Henk de Groot)
Newsgroups: comp.os.coherent,comp.os.linux,comp.os.minix,comp.os.386bsd.questions,comp.os.misc
Subject: Re: Unix OS for 286
Message-ID: <groot.735474426@baukje.idca.tds.philips.nl>
Date: 22 Apr 93 10:27:06 GMT
References: <C5psFF.Jrp@unix.amherst.edu> <9304203477@drktowr.chi.il.us>
Sender: news@idca.tds.philips.nl
Reply-To: groot@idca.tds.philips.nl (Henk de Groot)
Lines: 56
X-Disclaimer: This opinion is mine alone

In <9304203477@drktowr.chi.il.us> magus@drktowr.chi.il.us (Louis Giliberto) writes:
>Tim Pierce (twpierce@unix.amherst.edu) wrote:
>: Frankly, I think the proper "unfortunate" fact is that 386 machines
>Not really anymore.  If you have a 286, then you have all the hardware
>except for the motherboard.  You can get a 386/40 motherb 3 blocks from my house

FLAME ON
I don't understand this. The guy asked for a 286 unix and all I read is how
to upgrade to a 386. That was not the question!

I'm sick and tired of this, every time someone asks a question regarding old
hardware immediately people start saying 'its old, upgrade!' Maybe the guy
already has 3 486 66Mhz PC's and a Pentium but just wants to make use of his
old 286, or maybe a 286 is just enough for him (like it is for me). Please,
if the guy wanted to upgrade he would have asked a different question I'm
sure! Also questions about upgrading PC's don't belong in the '.os.'
groups!
FLAME OFF

To answer the question:

Minix 1.5 will run fine as a UNIX system on a 286. Of course there is an
64K+64K limit, but that's because its a 286. As far as I know every 286 Unix
has this problem. I own Minix 1.5 and I'm happy with it. Only if you need
large programs to run you have a problem but since you asked for a 286 Unix
I think you were aware of it's limitation.

There are various programs available for MINIX, and because it is a UNIX
version you can get all kinds of utilites for it (look at the archive sites
in comp.sources.unix and comp.sources.misc, most of them don't exceed the
64K+64K size. You have to have expirience with porting programs, but it is
not an impossible task)

There are also cross-compilers for MINIX so you can generate programs with
Turbo-C for minix (using a special library and the minix .h files).

I don't know about other 286 Unixes, but Minix can 'grow' with your system if
you upgrade to a 386, the updates are available on various FTP sites. Minix
is moving towards POSIX complience and development is still going on, I 
don't know if other 286 Unix systems are enhanced anymore. I think most of
them are 'end of life' and replaced by 386 versions.

Note that MINIX will run on 8088 and 8086 systems too, but that was not your
question...

Kind Regards,


Henk.

P.S. Sorry for the FLAME, I cooled down now thank you.

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