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1.1     ! root        1: MiNT is Not TOS: A Multitasking Operating System Extension for the Atari ST
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        !             3: 
        !             4: 
        !             5: Copyright 1990,1991,1992 Eric R. Smith. All rights reserved. See the file
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        !             7: "copying" for conditions of redistribution.
        !             8: 
        !             9: 
        !            10: 
        !            11: MiNT COMES WITH ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, NOR WILL I BE LIABLE FOR ANY
        !            12: 
        !            13: DAMAGES INCURRED FROM THE USE OF IT. USE ENTIRELY AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!
        !            14: 
        !            15: ---------------------------------------------------------------------
        !            16: 
        !            17: This is a beta-test version of MiNT, a multitasking TOS extender. It
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        !            19: seems to work quite well with my setup, but treat it with caution.
        !            20: 
        !            21: I strongly suggest that you make regular backups of your hard drive
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        !            23: if you're using MiNT; this is also a very good idea even if you're
        !            24: 
        !            25: not using MiNT, of course!
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        !            27: 
        !            28: 
        !            29: MiNT is *not* a shell like Gulam; rather, it is a resident program like
        !            30: 
        !            31: GDOS that provides features that other programs can take advantage of.
        !            32: 
        !            33: There are a variety of shells available that take advantage of MiNT, for
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        !            35: example ports of bash, ksh, and tcsh. And, of course, most ordinary TOS
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        !            37: shells work quite well under MiNT.
        !            38: 
        !            39: 
        !            40: 
        !            41: See the file "readme.1st" for details on how to make MiNT work. Basically,
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        !            43: you just copy it into the AUTO folder of your boot disk and reboot.
        !            44: 
        !            45: You can also run MiNT from the desktop, *if* you have set up mint.cnf
        !            46: 
        !            47: to specify an initial program to run (with a line like INIT=foo.prg).
        !            48: 
        !            49: Otherwise, MiNT will try to run GEM, which won't work too well if GEM is
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        !            51: already running!
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        !            53: 
        !            54: 
        !            55: So, what does MiNT provide for you? Multitasking is the big feature,
        !            56: 
        !            57: of course. But there are some others, such as:
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        !            59: 
        !            60: 
        !            61: (1) The TOS 1.4+ fastload bit is recognized and supported; so are some
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        !            63: system calls like Mxalloc that are only available under later versions
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        !            65: of TOS.
        !            66: 
        !            67: 
        !            68: 
        !            69: (2) You can figure out just what's happening in your system; what system
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        !            71: calls are being made, and what errors they're returning, by pressing
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        !            73: a CTRL-ALT-key combination. This makes debugging your own programs a lot
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        !            75: easier!
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        !            77: 
        !            78: 
        !            79: (3) All the disk drives are located as subdirectories of one big pseudo
        !            80: 
        !            81: disk drive, U:; for example, the file "A:\FOO" can also be accessed as
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        !            83: "U:\A\FOO". This can make certain kinds of operations much easier.
        !            84: 
        !            85: 
        !            86: 
        !            87: (4) Various BIOS devices are available via file names; for example, the
        !            88: 
        !            89: MIDI port is called "U:\DEV\MIDI". New devices can be installed via
        !            90: 
        !            91: appropriate system calls.
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        !            93: 
        !            94: 
        !            95: (5) MiNT supports symbolic links, which are aliases for files and directories.
        !            96: 
        !            97: For example, if you put the line:
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        !            99:    sln c:\foo\bar u:\baz
        !           100: 
        !           101: in your "mint.cnf" file, then you can access the file C:\FOO\BAR\X by the
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        !           103: name U:\BAZ\X (assuming, of course, that C:\FOO\BAR is a directory).
        !           104: 
        !           105: 
        !           106: 
        !           107: (6) MiNT makes ^C work a little more quickly (you don't have to wait until
        !           108: 
        !           109: the affected program makes an I/O call). And if that doesn't work,
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        !           111: CTRL-ALT-C will almost always kill the program.
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        !           113: 
        !           114: 
        !           115: (7) MiNT allows loadable file systems to read non-TOS disks just as though
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        !           117: they were TOS disks. For example, there's a file system available that can
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        !           119: read Minix format disks.
        !           120: 
        !           121: 
        !           122: 
        !           123: My original intention with the MiNT project was to have a multitasking
        !           124: 
        !           125: replacement for TOS. However, it turns out that Atari liked MiNT,
        !           126: 
        !           127: and in fact have licensed it to use in the multitasking version of TOS.
        !           128: 
        !           129: So perhaps the name is now a bit of an anachronism; but I like it.
        !           130: 
        !           131: Atari is calling their version of MiNT "MiNT is Now TOS". Please note
        !           132: 
        !           133: that their version of MiNT is *not* necessarily going to be the same
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        !           135: as this one (or any other freely available one) and that in particular
        !           136: 
        !           137: Atari is not obliged to be completely compatible with my MiNT. Also
        !           138: 
        !           139: please note that MultiTOS will consist of quite a bit more than just MiNT!
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        !           141: 
        !           142: 
        !           143: The conditions for distribution are spelled out in the file "copying";
        !           144: 
        !           145: this program is freeware, but it is *not* public domain. If you want
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        !           147: to distribute MiNT with a commercial product, please contact me -- I'm
        !           148: 
        !           149: sure we can work something out. If you come up with improvements and
        !           150: 
        !           151: bug fixes for MiNT, please mail them to me and/or post them to Usenet.
        !           152: 
        !           153: Please do *not* change the version number of MiNT, or distribute modified
        !           154: 
        !           155: copies under the name MiNT (call it "newmint", or "better", or whatever).
        !           156: 
        !           157: I want to make sure that when people talk about "MiNT version x.y",
        !           158: 
        !           159: everyone's talking about the same thing.
        !           160: 
        !           161: 
        !           162: 
        !           163: Source code for MiNT is being distributed in the file "mint095s.zoo"
        !           164: 
        !           165: (this will be called "mnt95s.zoo" on Compuserve).
        !           166: 
        !           167: 
        !           168: 
        !           169: My addresses are:
        !           170: 
        !           171: 
        !           172: 
        !           173: Compuserve: 71064,1305
        !           174: 
        !           175: GEnie: E.SMITH10
        !           176: 
        !           177: Internet: [email protected]
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        !           179: 
        !           180: 
        !           181: Ordinary Mail:
        !           182: 
        !           183: Eric R. Smith
        !           184: 
        !           185: Dept. of Mathematics
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        !           187: University of Western Ontario
        !           188: 
        !           189: London, Ont. Canada N6A 5B7
        !           190: 
        !           191: ph: (519) 661-3638
        !           192: 

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