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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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5: Copyright 1990,1991,1992 Eric R. Smith. All rights reserved. See the file
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7: "copying" for conditions of redistribution.
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11: MiNT COMES WITH ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, NOR WILL I BE LIABLE FOR ANY
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13: DAMAGES INCURRED FROM THE USE OF IT. USE ENTIRELY AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!
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15: ---------------------------------------------------------------------
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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.
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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
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25: not using MiNT, of course!
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29: MiNT is *not* a shell like Gulam; rather, it is a resident program like
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31: GDOS that provides features that other programs can take advantage of.
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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.
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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.
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45: You can also run MiNT from the desktop, *if* you have set up mint.cnf
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47: to specify an initial program to run (with a line like INIT=foo.prg).
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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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55: So, what does MiNT provide for you? Multitasking is the big feature,
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57: of course. But there are some others, such as:
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59:
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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.
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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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79: (3) All the disk drives are located as subdirectories of one big pseudo
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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.
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87: (4) Various BIOS devices are available via file names; for example, the
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89: MIDI port is called "U:\DEV\MIDI". New devices can be installed via
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91: appropriate system calls.
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95: (5) MiNT supports symbolic links, which are aliases for files and directories.
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97: For example, if you put the line:
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99: sln c:\foo\bar u:\baz
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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).
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107: (6) MiNT makes ^C work a little more quickly (you don't have to wait until
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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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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.
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123: My original intention with the MiNT project was to have a multitasking
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125: replacement for TOS. However, it turns out that Atari liked MiNT,
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127: and in fact have licensed it to use in the multitasking version of TOS.
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129: So perhaps the name is now a bit of an anachronism; but I like it.
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131: Atari is calling their version of MiNT "MiNT is Now TOS". Please note
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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
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137: Atari is not obliged to be completely compatible with my MiNT. Also
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139: please note that MultiTOS will consist of quite a bit more than just MiNT!
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143: The conditions for distribution are spelled out in the file "copying";
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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
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149: sure we can work something out. If you come up with improvements and
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151: bug fixes for MiNT, please mail them to me and/or post them to Usenet.
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153: Please do *not* change the version number of MiNT, or distribute modified
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155: copies under the name MiNT (call it "newmint", or "better", or whatever).
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157: I want to make sure that when people talk about "MiNT version x.y",
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159: everyone's talking about the same thing.
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163: Source code for MiNT is being distributed in the file "mint095s.zoo"
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165: (this will be called "mnt95s.zoo" on Compuserve).
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169: My addresses are:
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173: Compuserve: 71064,1305
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175: GEnie: E.SMITH10
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177: Internet: [email protected]
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180:
181: Ordinary Mail:
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183: Eric R. Smith
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185: Dept. of Mathematics
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187: University of Western Ontario
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189: London, Ont. Canada N6A 5B7
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191: ph: (519) 661-3638
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