It was unfortunate how Minix was distributed as a $69 book. It was very expensive for a student. Inflation corrected it would be about $120 now. However bein

It was unfortunate how Minix was distributed as a $69 book. It was very expensive for a student. Inflation corrected it would be about $120 now. However being in the UK meant the usual 1 USD = 1 GBP conversion (making it cost about 50% more), not to mention VAT at another 15% on top - a total of about $210 in today's money. I am pointing this out not because the pricing was unreasonable, but because it was a big barrier to use. (At the same time a full version of Windows 3.0 retailed for $149 or $79 (upgrade) - 1990 dollars. You also required a copy of DOS.) The article also mentions 32 bit support, but there was a lot of tension going on. It was possible to make Minix perform a lot better by deeper platform support and multi-threading components (especially the filesystem), but this made the code more complex, longer and harder to understand. Consequently there were two versions of Minix in use - the base true to the mission, and big patch sets on top that made it more usable/performant. The latter were distributed over the Internet. This shows why Linux took off so quickly. There was no barrier to participation like paying for the book. While functionality was a lot less, there was no gatekeeper keeping it small, simple and educational. And Minix had shown how to collaborate with patches to an operating system over the Internet. It didn't take long for Linux to overtake Minix onto the path we see today.