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--- minix_on_the_atari_st [2016/02/26 10:41] – [Running Minix on an emulated Atari] kdev
+++ minix_on_the_atari_st [2016/02/29 18:30] (current) – kdev
@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-====== Minix on the Atari ST ======
+====== Minix, a miniature Unix for the Atari ST ======
 Minix, the miniature Unix from Andy Tanenbaum was initially released in 1987 for IBM PC and compatibles. In 1991 it was released for the Atari ST line of computers, in version 1.5, among ports for the Amiga, the 68k-based Macintosh, and the Sun Sparc. In 2000, it was relicensed in a [[http://minix1.woodhull.com/LICENSE.html|bsd style license]]
-Minix 1.x was meant to be system call compatible with  Research Unix v7, which explains the small size of the distribution ( 8 MB including source code and C compiler ) and the lack of features. Minix 1.5 comes in two flavours, a  [[http://www.minix3.org/previous-versions/Atari/ | floppy disk distribution]] containing the OS, C compiler and source code, and a [[http://www.nic.funet.fi/pub/minix/demo/ | bootable demo disk]].\\
+Minix 1.x was meant to be system call compatible with  Research Unix v7, which explains the small size of the distribution (8 MB including source code and C compiler) and the lack of features. Minix 1.5 comes in two flavours, a  [[http://www.minix3.org/previous-versions/Atari/ | floppy disk distribution]] containing the OS, C compiler and source code, and a [[http://www.nic.funet.fi/pub/minix/demo/ | bootable demo disk]].\\
 As an alternative you could try a recent [[St Mint | FreeMint]] , which is a TOS compatible Unix Clone.
-===== Running Minix on an emulated Atari =====
-[[http://hatari.sourceforge.net|Hatari]] is a free ( as in free speech ) Atari ST emulator, which emulates quite well the original hardware, since it allows running third party operating systems besides Atari TOS. Runs on Unix-like systems.
+{{ :minix_on_atari_st_small.jpg?200|Minix on Atari ST }}
-== Documentation ==
+== Disk image, hardware requirements ==
+Download: [[http://www.subsole.org/static/retrocomputing/minix-1.5r3.img.zip | ACSI diskimage]].
+The target platform are 68000 Ataris with 1 MB of RAM, 64MB SD card storage, ST High Resolution (recommended)
+== Writing the media ==
+  * unzip the SD card image, and write to it a SD card. The card has to be 64MB minimum.
+  * All previous data on the SD card will be erased. How to write the SD card image depends on your platform:
+    * Linux & Unix: follow this tutorial  http://askubuntu.com/questions/179437/how-can-i-burn-a-raspberry-pi-image-to-sd-card-from-ubuntu or use ''dd''
+    * Windows: Download the Win32DiskImager program, and follow this tutorial: http://raspi.tv/2012/how-to-make-a-raspberry-pi-disk-image-to-sd-card-with-win32diskimager
+    * OsX: follow this tutorial: http://www.embeddedarm.com/support/faqs.php?item=10
+== How to use ==
+Enter the SD card in the *first* slot of your SD devices, power on your ST, and start the program MINIX.PRG.
+Then press "enter" at the boot prompt to load the OS  and login as 'root' user without password.
+An empty floppy inside the floppy drive will speed up the boot process.
+===== Documentation =====
+== Manual ==
 The documentation for Minix 1.5 is available at http://minix1.woodhull.com/pub/refman.1.5/, in nroff format. To read it, you have to download the .nrf file along the macros file, and use the following command:
 <code>
@@ Line 22: / Line 38: @@
 As  groff has problem parsing the minix macros file, you could try with the classical Unix Troff from the [[http://heirloom.sourceforge.net/doctools.html|Heirloom Project]]
-== First Boot ==
+== Man pages ==
+Man pages for Minix 1.5 on the PC are available from [[http://www.oldlinux.org/Linux.old/study/linux-travel/MINIX-1.5/man.1.5/man-1.5/ | OldLinux]] (as Linux was initially developped from a Minix 1.5 system) You miss the documentation couple of Atari specific command, but for the rest everything applies to ST Minix.
-  * Download the floppy distribution from http://www.minix3.org/previous-versions/Atari in a directory
+== Boot sequence video ==
-  * Rename all the floppies images so that they have the .st file extension. Hatari need this to know it has to do deal with raw floppies images
+The boot sequence can be seen in this [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tPhV8PuGWo|youtube video.]]
-  * If need fix the keyboard layout on the boot disk in you have a non-QWERTY layout, using the documentation mentioned above
-  * Boot the virtual ST with
-<code>
-hatari --mono  --confirm-quit 0 disk01.st
-</code>
-  * Swap floppy disk02.st and disk03.st with Alt +D when asked, until you get your Minix prompt.
-Hint: the user account ist ast with password Wachtwoord. The root password is indicated in the documentation mentioned above.
+== With an emulator ==
+Use the downloaded .img file as an emulated ACSI device, and just boot. If you use the [[http://hatari.tuxfamily.org/|Hatari]] emulator, it would be:
-To save the burden of this heavy disk swapping, you can just save the state of the Virtual Machine with AltGr+K, and AltGr+L will load everything again the next time.
+<code>hatari --acsi minix-1.5r3.img.zip</code>
 {{:minix-booting.png|Minix booting on Hatari}}
-== Man pages ==
-Man pages for Minix 1.5 on the PC are available from [[http://www.oldlinux.org/Linux.old/study/linux-travel/MINIX-1.5/man.1.5/man-1.5/ | OldLinux]] (as Linux was initially developped from a Minix 1.5 system) You miss the documentation couple of Atari specfic command, but for the rest everything applies to ST Minix.
-== Hard drive ==
-The ACSI hard drive emulated by Hatari is recognized by Minix.
-We installed Minix according to the manual mentionned above on a disk image (press "enter" at the boot prompt, then login as the root user without password)
-{{:minix.2.img.zip|}}
 == Going further ==
-Serial port and real time clock support have not been tried yet.
+Real time clock do not seem to work.
 Brave BSD hacker Hans Ottevanger has updated the the Minix 1.5 distributions to 1.6.25. the last version supported on the ST. Have a look at his [[http://www.beastielabs.net/minix/|page]].
-====== Running Minix on a Real Atari =====
-Here is a a photo of Minix running on a Atari, displaying the /etc/rc init file : {{ :minix_on_atari_st_small.jpg?200|Minix on Atari ST }}
-The boot sequence can be seen in this [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tPhV8PuGWo|youtube video.]]
-Minimum requirements for running Minix on a real Atari are 1 MB RAM, and a 720k floppy disk drive. Use of a hard drive is optional ! The base system will run from three floppies (kernel, root, /usr ) in RAM. I used for myself the old Atari of my youth, a 520 STE expanded to 4 MB RAM, with a 20 MB Megafile hard drive bought on Ebay.\\
-The floppy disks image  shoud be then written with the Unix ''dd'' of the DOS/Windows ''Rawrite'' on Atari Compatible floppies, which means double side double density floppies.
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