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From: a...@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Request for information about editors
Message-ID: <1535@botter.cs.vu.nl>
Date: Thu, 23-Jul-87 05:23:03 EDT
Article-I.D.: botter.1535
Posted: Thu Jul 23 05:23:03 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 25-Jul-87 05:32:57 EDT
Reply-To: a...@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Distribution: world
Organization: VU Informatica, Amsterdam
Lines: 21

I have a small confession to make.  Actually, I have hinted at this before,
but I have never come right out and said it.  I don't actually use MINIX
myself, except when testing MINIX.

The reason is that for non-MINIX work, I frequently need to edit files up
to about 200K bytes, and the MINIX editor can only handle files that fit
in its address space, about 45K.  Consequently, I normally use jove running
on PC-IX.

Has anyone ported jove to MINIX?  That would be very nice.  How about
micro Emacs?  Has anyone tried modifying mined to handle larger files
(it's not trivial or I would have long done it)?  Does anyone have or know
of any other screen editor that can handle large files and runs on MINIX or
could be made to?

Please post any information you have about editors for large files.  If nothing
exists and anyone feels inspired to modify mined to use a temporary file
instead of keeping everything in core, that would be greatly appreciated.  I
might even start using MINIX myself.  Who knows what that would lead to.

Andy Tanenbaum (a...@cs.vu.nl)

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From: ncoverby%NDSUVAX.BIT...@wiscvm.wisc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re:  Request for information about editors
Message-ID: <392@louie.udel.EDU>
Date: Sun, 26-Jul-87 02:47:29 EDT
Article-I.D.: louie.392
Posted: Sun Jul 26 02:47:29 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 26-Jul-87 07:37:59 EDT
Sender: use...@udel.EDU
Lines: 18

From: Glen Overby <ncoverby%NDSUVAX.BIT...@wiscvm.wisc.edu>

In his posting of 23 Jul 87 09:23:03 GMT, Andy Tanenbaum <a...@cs.vu.nl> writes:
> Has anyone ported jove to MINIX?  That would be very nice.  How about
> micro Emacs?  Has anyone tried modifying mined to handle larger files
> (it's not trivial or I would have long done it)?  Does anyone have or know
> of any other screen editor that can handle large files and runs on MINIX or
> could be made to?
I have tried porting Micro Emacs version 3.6 and MicroGnuEmacs. On both
I recieved a "Out of memory" message (or something to that effect) from
asld. I assumed it was running out of output memory (the 64K code space
limitation) and gave up. Both of these Emacs require that the entire
file be loaded into memory at one time, so it wouldn't help for big
files. Jove looks like it would be worth a try...

Glen Overby
Bitnet: ncoverby@ndsuvax
from UUCP: ihnp4!psuvax1!ndsuvax.bitnet!ncoverby

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From: a...@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re:  Request for information about editors
Message-ID: <1539@botter.cs.vu.nl>
Date: Sun, 26-Jul-87 10:27:10 EDT
Article-I.D.: botter.1539
Posted: Sun Jul 26 10:27:10 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 26-Jul-87 21:06:16 EDT
References: <392@louie.udel.EDU>
Reply-To: a...@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Organization: VU Informatica, Amsterdam
Lines: 34

In article <3...@louie.udel.EDU> ncoverby%NDSUVAX.BIT...@wiscvm.wisc.edu writes:
>From: Glen Overby <ncoverby%NDSUVAX.BIT...@wiscvm.wisc.edu>
>
>I have tried porting Micro Emacs version 3.6 and MicroGnuEmacs. On both
>I recieved a "Out of memory" message.

I am not surprised, "Micro" and "GNU" are two fundamentally incompatible
concepts.

Worse yet, I tried porting jove and failed.  There were two problems:

1. I couldn't make a termcap entry for the MINIX "terminal".  MINIX numbers
   the screen lines with (0, 0) in the lower left hand corner.  Perhaps it
   was arrogant of me to choose this co-ordinate system.  I just thought that
   since the entire world has been doing things this way since the time of
   Rene Descartes (1596-1650), it might be ok.  As far as I can tell, termcap
   can't hack it.

2. The keys on the numeric pad generate codes above 128.  There is no way in
   termcap to express this concept, and even if it were possible, jove
   can handle it.

While it might be possible to modify tty.c to add a new escape sequence, say
ESC ! x y to number the rows the other way, and modify it again to produce
escape sequences for the numeric pad, there is another issue-performance.
Jove writes characters to the screen one at a time.  This results in a lot of
system calls, which is very slow.  Mined has been very carefully optimized to
hold the number of system calls to an absolute minimum.

I think the most realistic possibility is to modify mined to handle large
files.  If anybody feels inspired to do this, I (personally) think it would
be the most valuable single addition to MINIX at this point.

Andy Tanenbaum (a...@cs.vu.nl)

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From: k...@minnow.UUCP (Kevin Thomas)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re:  Request for information about editors
Message-ID: <919@minnow.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 27-Jul-87 11:04:33 EDT
Article-I.D.: minnow.919
Posted: Mon Jul 27 11:04:33 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 29-Jul-87 01:49:50 EDT
References: <392@louie.udel.EDU> <1539@botter.cs.vu.nl>
Reply-To: k...@minnow.UUCP (Kevin Thomas)
Organization: Unisys Corporation - Roseville, MN
Lines: 25
Summary: Can't compile mined with Minix

In article <1...@botter.cs.vu.nl> a...@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) writes:
>I think the most realistic possibility is to modify mined to handle large
>files.

I've been attempting to make some minor modifications to mined with
an eye towards taking on the task of adding large file handling.
However, I cannot get mined to recompile successfully using the Minix
compiler.  Perhaps someone can help me with my problems:

1)  When I compile mined, I get many "Unsigned constant expression overflow"
warning messages.  I cannot tell if these warnings are the source of
problem 2).

2) When I execute my newly created mined, I get an unending amount of
"Unexpected trap 16h" messages (quoting from memory--you get the idea).
The system is hung at this point; I have to hardware reset.

Has anyone gotten mined to recompile sucessfully using the Minix compiler?
I have a Sperry PC/IT with 640k memory.  I have compiled many other programs,
including the Minix kernel, successfully.

-- 
Kevin Thomas               UUCP: ...!rutgers!dayton!ems!minnow!kjt
Unisys Corporation               ...!ihnp4!meccts!ems!minnow!kjt
Phone: +1 612 635 6042    CSNET: kjt%min...@Alice.SP.Unisys.Com

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From: a...@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re:  Request for information about editors
Message-ID: <1546@botter.cs.vu.nl>
Date: Wed, 29-Jul-87 11:26:56 EDT
Article-I.D.: botter.1546
Posted: Wed Jul 29 11:26:56 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 31-Jul-87 04:57:28 EDT
References: <392@louie.udel.EDU> <1539@botter.cs.vu.nl> <919@minnow.UUCP>
Reply-To: a...@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Organization: VU Informatica, Amsterdam
Lines: 13

In article <9...@minnow.UUCP> k...@minnow.UUCP (Kevin Thomas) writes:
>I cannot get mined to recompile successfully using the Minix
>compiler.  Perhaps someone can help me with my problems.
>
I just tried compiling mined and it went through flawlessly.  Now it is true
I am now using the 1.2 compiler, but my suspicion is that the real problem
is the stack space.  If the compiler stack overflows, weird things happen
(the 8088 has no protection, as you may recall). 

Try chmem'ing the stack to 60000 and using the -F flag to run cpp and cem
separately and see if that helps.

Andy Tanenbaum (a...@cs.vu.nl)