Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!husc6!bloom-beacon!think!ames!ptsfa!ihnp4!alberta!calgary!radford From: radford@calgary.UUCP (Radford Neal) Newsgroups: comp.os.minix Subject: Re: MAC and Minix Message-ID: <1027@vaxb.calgary.UUCP> Date: Sat, 18-Jul-87 15:35:46 EDT Article-I.D.: vaxb.1027 Posted: Sat Jul 18 15:35:46 1987 Date-Received: Sun, 19-Jul-87 01:38:30 EDT References: <1756@pbhye.UUCP> <990@vaxb.calgary.UUCP> <17@vuecho.psy.vu.nl> Organization: U. of Calgary, Calgary, Ab. Lines: 28 Keywords: C port ACK In article <17@vuecho.psy.vu.nl>, michael@psy.vu.nl (Michael Felt) writes: > >> Has anyone thought of porting Minix to the Mac or is that to wierd? ... > >If you did this right, however, you could be secure against wild MINIX > >processes. > > > I have my reservations. Without memory protection a bad pointer > from any program can blow another program away. > > Michael Felt You may not have quite realized how extreme my conception of offsetting *all* accesses from an address register is. Pointer variables would be 16 bits in size. To use one, you load it into a register and use it as a 16-bit index from an address register. All processes are exactly 64K in size. You don't get to use jsr for subroutine calls; you maintain your own stack in the 64K address process of the process. I'm really disappointed in the lack of response from the net on this one. In case you don't get it, the suggestion that MINIX be ported as a desk accessory was a joke. Just think of all those Mac fanatics who could say "Unix? Oh yeah, I've got a desk accessory for that...". If you really want MINIX to run concurrently with Mac applications, I suggest use of Switcher. However, by no means does this mean that my proposed method is not possible! Radford Neal