Re: UNIX variant for old PC
On Sun, 9 Jan 2000, aphro wrote:
> i believe there is variatns for the 286, but cant imagine there being any
> for the 8088 and 8086 there just isn't enough memory to do anything useful
> on those machines. i remember my 286 had 4MB of ram, combined with swap
> it could do some stuff in linux im sure(never tried)
>
> minix was probably 386 and higher as well, as i imagine there are too many
> restraints on the design on anything less then 386 that make it hard to
> program something like an OS for.
When I taught Operating Systems, (ancient history) we used a very
early version of minix which did not run in protected mode. It ran
on 8088s. On floppies only.
Minix was intended to teach, not be a real tool. That is how Andrew
Tannenbaum and Linus Torvalds got into their famous argument about
OS design: "Linus would have failed my course." or some such remark.
I have not done the OS course in many years, and have no idea
whether current Minix runs in real mode.
--David
David Teague, dbt@cs.wcu.edu
Debian GNU/Linux Because software support is free, timely,
useful, technically accurate, and friendly.
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