--- MiNT/readme 2018/04/24 17:55:35 1.1 +++ MiNT/readme 2018/04/24 17:57:47 1.1.1.4 @@ -2,191 +2,79 @@ MiNT is Not TOS: A Multitasking Operatin -Copyright 1990,1991,1992 Eric R. Smith. All rights reserved. See the file +Copyright 1990,1991,1992 Eric R. Smith. -"copying" for conditions of redistribution. +Copyright 1992,1993,1994 Atari Corporation +All rights reserved. -MiNT COMES WITH ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, NOR WILL I BE LIABLE FOR ANY -DAMAGES INCURRED FROM THE USE OF IT. USE ENTIRELY AT YOUR OWN RISK!!! +THE MiNT SOURCE CODE IS PROVIDED FREE OF CHARGE, AS IS. ATARI ---------------------------------------------------------------------- +CORPORATION AND ERIC R. SMITH MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS OR -This is a beta-test version of MiNT, a multitasking TOS extender. It +WARRANTIES WITH RESPECT TO THIS CODE, AND IN PARTICULAR -seems to work quite well with my setup, but treat it with caution. +SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF -I strongly suggest that you make regular backups of your hard drive +MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. USE THIS -if you're using MiNT; this is also a very good idea even if you're +CODE AT YOUR OWN RISK. -not using MiNT, of course! +---------------------------------------------------------------------------- +Here is the source code for the current version of MiNT. There are +lots of changes, of course, but no docs. Sorry. The "changes" file -MiNT is *not* a shell like Gulam; rather, it is a resident program like +does provide a useful list of things that have changed since previous -GDOS that provides features that other programs can take advantage of. +versions of MiNT. -There are a variety of shells available that take advantage of MiNT, for -example ports of bash, ksh, and tcsh. And, of course, most ordinary TOS -shells work quite well under MiNT. +Please read the notice in "copying" carefully. This code is completely +unsupported; you use it at your own risk. Because it is unsupported +(and undocumented) we are distributing it in source code only form. -See the file "readme.1st" for details on how to make MiNT work. Basically, +Users who wish a binary version of MiNT should purchase MultiTOS. -you just copy it into the AUTO folder of your boot disk and reboot. +Anyone who wants to use this version of MiNT should be fully aware -You can also run MiNT from the desktop, *if* you have set up mint.cnf +of the risks involved in using unsupported software, and should -to specify an initial program to run (with a line like INIT=foo.prg). +also be comfortable enough with C and the process of compiling that -Otherwise, MiNT will try to run GEM, which won't work too well if GEM is +they can fix bugs themselves. Please respect the conditions in "copying" -already running! +(in particular please do not redistribute binary versions of this +program). Source code to future versions of MiNT will not be made +available if these conditions are violated. -So, what does MiNT provide for you? Multitasking is the big feature, -of course. But there are some others, such as: +This version of MiNT is compiled to use memory protection by +default. If you want to use the version of the AES from the ROM, -(1) The TOS 1.4+ fastload bit is recognized and supported; so are some +you'll have to (a) turn off the -DMULTITOS flag in the makefile, -system calls like Mxalloc that are only available under later versions +and (b) after compiling rename "mint.prg" to "mintnp.prg". If -of TOS. +MiNT notices that it is called "mintnp.prg", it will come up +with memory protection disabled (this is necessary because the ROM +AES violates memory protection in several ways). You can also -(2) You can figure out just what's happening in your system; what system +disable memory protection by setting the "no_mem_prot" variable -calls are being made, and what errors they're returning, by pressing +in memprot.c and recompiling. -a CTRL-ALT-key combination. This makes debugging your own programs a lot -easier! - - - -(3) All the disk drives are located as subdirectories of one big pseudo - -disk drive, U:; for example, the file "A:\FOO" can also be accessed as - -"U:\A\FOO". This can make certain kinds of operations much easier. - - - -(4) Various BIOS devices are available via file names; for example, the - -MIDI port is called "U:\DEV\MIDI". New devices can be installed via - -appropriate system calls. - - - -(5) MiNT supports symbolic links, which are aliases for files and directories. - -For example, if you put the line: - - sln c:\foo\bar u:\baz - -in your "mint.cnf" file, then you can access the file C:\FOO\BAR\X by the - -name U:\BAZ\X (assuming, of course, that C:\FOO\BAR is a directory). - - - -(6) MiNT makes ^C work a little more quickly (you don't have to wait until - -the affected program makes an I/O call). And if that doesn't work, - -CTRL-ALT-C will almost always kill the program. - - - -(7) MiNT allows loadable file systems to read non-TOS disks just as though - -they were TOS disks. For example, there's a file system available that can - -read Minix format disks. - - - -My original intention with the MiNT project was to have a multitasking - -replacement for TOS. However, it turns out that Atari liked MiNT, - -and in fact have licensed it to use in the multitasking version of TOS. - -So perhaps the name is now a bit of an anachronism; but I like it. - -Atari is calling their version of MiNT "MiNT is Now TOS". Please note - -that their version of MiNT is *not* necessarily going to be the same - -as this one (or any other freely available one) and that in particular - -Atari is not obliged to be completely compatible with my MiNT. Also - -please note that MultiTOS will consist of quite a bit more than just MiNT! - - - -The conditions for distribution are spelled out in the file "copying"; - -this program is freeware, but it is *not* public domain. If you want - -to distribute MiNT with a commercial product, please contact me -- I'm - -sure we can work something out. If you come up with improvements and - -bug fixes for MiNT, please mail them to me and/or post them to Usenet. - -Please do *not* change the version number of MiNT, or distribute modified - -copies under the name MiNT (call it "newmint", or "better", or whatever). - -I want to make sure that when people talk about "MiNT version x.y", - -everyone's talking about the same thing. - - - -Source code for MiNT is being distributed in the file "mint095s.zoo" - -(this will be called "mnt95s.zoo" on Compuserve). - - - -My addresses are: - - - -Compuserve: 71064,1305 - -GEnie: E.SMITH10 - -Internet: eric.smith@uwo.ca - - - -Ordinary Mail: - -Eric R. Smith - -Dept. of Mathematics - -University of Western Ontario - -London, Ont. Canada N6A 5B7 - -ph: (519) 661-3638