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I remember the 14-character limit from the Xenix system I worked on as a kid. Xenix was one of the reasons I got into Linux in my late teens, and it blew my min

I remember the 14-character limit from the Xenix system I worked on as a kid. Xenix was one of the reasons I got into Linux in my late teens, and it blew my mind how much more flexible the latter system was, despite being very familiar.

mixmastamyk 1y ago
I tried Minix as my first unix-like, which had similar limitations. But was used to Commodore and DOS so it felt more advanced. Linux was still a year or so away. I remember the thrill of multitasking at the command line for the first time with &, blew my mind. :-D Can’t remember how I obtained Minix before having access to the internet. Maybe downloaded from a BBS? Or possibly an instructor had a copy on floppy.
- AStonesThrow 1y ago
  Minix was generally distributed with Andrew Tanenbaum’s book. When I installed it on my 286, it was on 3.5” floppies — two dozen or so.
  - mixmastamyk 1y ago
    Hmm, maybe I borrowed from a teacher. I only remember maybe two floppies however. Perhaps there was a smaller subset to install. I do remember that many floppies for Win95 and Slackware, though a few years later.
    - bitwize 1y ago
      Early versions of Minix, as I recall, were supposed to be runnable off two floppies, for the benefit of those with PCs or XTs that didn't have a hard disk.
    - AStonesThrow 1y ago
      Surely I am exaggerating from memory. It looks like the base system for Minix could fit on one HD floppy (1.44MB). My PS/2 HDD was only 20MB, and I recall having enough free space after the install. For Minix 1.5, there's another estimate here of 9 DD floppies -- 6.5MB compressed. That seems about right. I definitely went for the compiler and all the accessories. The C compiler was far from ANSI-compliant and barely K&R. It made for some interesting times. Minix 3 is BSD-licensed, and distributed on CD-ROM now, and can still be purchased from Pearson! https://www.pearson.com/en-us/subject-catalog/p/operating-systems-design-and-implementation/P200000003167/9780133002058 https://www.pearson.com/en-us/subject-catalog/p/operating-sy...

mixmastamyk 1y ago

I tried Minix as my first unix-like, which had similar limitations. But was used to Commodore and DOS so it felt more advanced. Linux was still a year or so away. I remember the thrill of multitasking at the command line for the first time with &, blew my mind. :-D Can’t remember how I obtained Minix before having access to the internet. Maybe downloaded from a BBS? Or possibly an instructor had a copy on floppy.

AStonesThrow 1y ago
Minix was generally distributed with Andrew Tanenbaum’s book. When I installed it on my 286, it was on 3.5” floppies — two dozen or so.
- mixmastamyk 1y ago
  Hmm, maybe I borrowed from a teacher. I only remember maybe two floppies however. Perhaps there was a smaller subset to install. I do remember that many floppies for Win95 and Slackware, though a few years later.
  - bitwize 1y ago
    Early versions of Minix, as I recall, were supposed to be runnable off two floppies, for the benefit of those with PCs or XTs that didn't have a hard disk.
  - AStonesThrow 1y ago
    Surely I am exaggerating from memory. It looks like the base system for Minix could fit on one HD floppy (1.44MB). My PS/2 HDD was only 20MB, and I recall having enough free space after the install. For Minix 1.5, there's another estimate here of 9 DD floppies -- 6.5MB compressed. That seems about right. I definitely went for the compiler and all the accessories. The C compiler was far from ANSI-compliant and barely K&R. It made for some interesting times. Minix 3 is BSD-licensed, and distributed on CD-ROM now, and can still be purchased from Pearson! https://www.pearson.com/en-us/subject-catalog/p/operating-systems-design-and-implementation/P200000003167/9780133002058 https://www.pearson.com/en-us/subject-catalog/p/operating-sy...