lolo799 wrote on 2021-12-23, 14:18:
You're using Minix on DOS as a base from the following website, right?
https://web.archive.org/web/20060813104310/ht … x.technoir.org/
Did you try running it directly from a flashcard that uses the Minix filesystem along with the pcmcia and int13h services from https://web.archive.org/web/20020209220137/ht … .erols.com/rld/?
I did find and grab the files, but I decided not to use them as I'm running minix on my palmtop with the SCSI2SD card,
and there's no minix driver for the ParaSCSI.
Also, compiling a kernel with the bios hard drive driver is larger than the dosfile one... (and memory is extremely scarce as is, I need every byte for my target webserver project)
Also, I don't have any other large CF cards that I can wipe currently as I'm working on several projects / doing research etc...
I only have a 2x 2GB and 32MB card at the moment, and the first one requires the acecard3 driver, which wouldn't be possible booting minix directly,
and the 32mb card is way too small for my project...
Even if it did work with the 2GB cards, both are currently in use for other projects for upcoming videos, so I can't even try it...
I'm happy to run dosminix, it quick/easy, I can install it on any CF card or my SCSI2SD along with my other MS-DOS stuff I'm working on,
and, as this is an educational/instructional video, I want it to be the easiest for others to implement,
and I plan to make my dosminix archive available for download once the 2nd video is done,
so people can easily download it, unzip it in a directory on their palmtop's DOS formatted CF card, and boot it with one command...
I'll be happy to run minix with the 200LX pcmcia/bios HD implementations with proper minix filesystems on an appropriately partitioned CF card, if I can find me another 1GB or 2GB CF card 😀,
that works on the palmtop, which are incredibly difficult to find (real ones that actually work), and, the acecard3 driver isn't required...
I'm currently working on slimming down the size of the ppp.drv PPP client driver and reducing it's stack space so I can fit 2x (one for input and one for output) into the remaining user-space memory,
after building a kernel with networking (which makes the kernel 120kb larger and is now approx 300kb large, half my total working memory).
Add to that another 100kb for the ppp.drv, and i've only got 200kb left for the 2x tcpd's that i need to run for the in.httpd and in.telnetd, which I'm also
trying to slim down by disabling unnecessary features before compilng them, or, i've got a small 2000 line, very simple HTTP 1.1 server I wrote a few years ago in C,
that I can port to the system if the in.httpd is too large. (minix does'nt support posix threads, eg pthreads, so the httpd forks upon a new connection, which makes the memory issues even worse),
so if I can port my tiny httpd server, which also forks, things should be much better as it only uses <10kb of process size while running, so it can fork a decent amount of processes,
to serve maybe 5 or 6 or so concurrent connections... At this point I just want to finish everything so I can make the 2nd video, instead of start all over...
Another thing that I thought would be an issue is that the dosminix 2.0.2 for the 200LX (from the page archived at the wayback machine) is patched/updated to support the 200LX and it's RS232 port.
If I were to use a CF card as a BIOS HD, i'd have to use a generic minix 2.x distribution, which would come without these patches, and as thus my RS232 port won't work,
and it's vital to what i'm trying to achieve... These patches aren't available anywhere, they only come rolled into the dosminix for HP 200LX you can download on that archived page...
Finally, I need dos to load the clkup32.sys driver for the doublespeed crystal, otherwise many system functions malfunction, (RS232 port does'n work correctly, LCD is missing rows on left and many more issues,
besides the acecard3 or ParaSCSI HD driver...
Radiance