The Sinclair QL Forum

Hi, I'am interested in a minix or linux version for the original QL, I see a little mention for minix in a old magazine.

I believe there is/was a variant of Linux for the Q40/Q60 but not for the QL.

I once had a conversation with Dave Walker (he of C68 compiler fame) about Minix on the QL and was advised not to bother as there was no memory manager (or something like that) which would have been necessary.

I suspected, at the time, that the 128KB total RAM would have been seriously insufficient by a long way.

Cheers,
Norm.

Minix is/was a very shrunk-down Unix that doesn't need a MMU like Unix or Linux (which was probably what Dave Walker was talking about). IF I remember right, there was a version of Minix for the QL on one of the German Quasar Club Disks (that I never owned). So maybe if one of these can be still found?

This was published by Timothy Swenson in May/June 1990:

Like I remember, in this moment more years ago (but I remember the same of my bad English language, every day minus, sorry), Minix 1, the version in the original book from Tannenbaun (I are looking my copy buy in the 90s) run in a PC 8086 With 640kb. 128kb of memory semble are not enough. But with a memory extension to 640 or 1Mb, I don't know.

The page mentioned are the same of I find, but are from 90s, the mencioned mails in the text are 30 years old, I doubt the mails wok today, but I send mails.

Peter wrote: Fri Nov 29, 2024 4:36 pm This was published by Timothy Swenson in May/June 1990:
MinixOnTheQL.jpg

The latest I heard was that theyre still waiting for the compiler to finish..

I confirm the minix version 1 run in a PC 8086 or 8088 with 640kb and one floppy disk of 360Kb.

There was Minix diff files, which the differences to be applied to the Atari version of Minix.

I used to have a copy of this, but have been unable find the copies of this software. I think the software was downloaded from a BBS, which maybe defunct now.

I will look at my old floppy disks and CDROM backups, to see if this can found, but I seem remember that the Minix was able to run on an Atari ST QL emulator. So maybe still specific to the Atari.

tofro wrote: Fri Nov 29, 2024 4:10 pm Minix is/was a very shrunk-down Unix that doesn't need a MMU like Unix or Linux (which was probably what Dave Walker was talking about). IF I remember right, there was a version of Minix for the QL on one of the German Quasar Club Disks (that I never owned). So maybe if one of these can be still found?

I sit corrected in that case, thanks.

Cheers,
Norm.

I knew my name would come up on this. That article is pretty much all that I know about Minux on the QL and it was written when the news item was pretty fresh. I'm glad someone found that because I don't remember all the details after all these years.

Tim