MiNT is Not TOS: A Multitasking Operating System Extension for the Atari ST

Copyright 1990 Eric R. Smith. All rights reserved. See the file COPYING
for conditions of redistribution.

MiNT COMES WITH ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, NOR WILL I BE LIABLE FOR ANY
DAMAGES INCURRED FROM THE USE OF IT. USE ENTIRELY AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!
---------------------------------------------------------------------

This is a beta-test version of MiNT, a multitasking TOS extender. It
seems to work quite well with my setup, but treat it with caution -- it
may be that the programs I use regularly are the *only* ones that it
works with! I have tested (and used regularly) gulam, gcc, gnu make,
uniterm, and various well-behaved games. I boot up with MiNT all the
time, but then I make regular backups of everything so even if there's
some horrible bug lurking in MiNT I won't get burned. (Of course, you
make regular backups too -- don't you?).

"mint.prg" and some program named "init.prg" are needed to start the
system; "init.prg" is the first program run by MiNT, and can be
your favorite shell. Note that Gulam makes a GEM call, so it can be
used as "init.prg" only if you're running MiNT after GEM has started.
The "init.prg" that comes with the system is useful because it directly
supports pipes, background processes, and job control; unfortunately,
it's quite lacking in other features (e.g. wildcard expansion). If
someone would like to improve it, please be my guest!

The documentation is in "mint.doc". A summary of features is:
	-- (mostly) TOS compatible
	-- multitasking
	-- processes are accesible as files on drive X:
	-- bios devices are accesible as files on drive V:
	-- new bios devices for stdin, stdout, stderr, mouse, midi,
	   controlling terminal, and a null device
	-- pipes and named FIFO's
	-- pseudo-tty's
	-- BSD style signals
	-- job control
	-- many Unix-like system calls, and enhancements to existing
	   TOS calls
	-- supports redirection of BIOS input and output

MiNT has been tested and seems to work on TOS 1.0 loaded from disk and
TOS 1.4 in ROMs, so it should work on any ST. It does take up a fair
amount of memory (probably 200K or so) so you'll likely want a 1040 or
better to run it. MiNT will definitely not work on a TT.

My intention with the MiNT project is to eventually have a multitasking
replacement for TOS. Obviously, I can't do this myself. So you're
encouraged to do whatever you can to improve this system. Here are some
things that would be nice, but that (for whatever reason) I'll probably
not get around to:
(1) a TCP/IP server of some sort (probably KA9Q could be adapted to
    at least provide SLIP), plus a socket library using FIFO's to
    communicate with it
(2) lots of GNU software will port very easily to MiNT; it would be nice
    to see MiNT aware versions of bash and emacs, for example
(3) there are some nifty multi-user games (e.g. tinymud and empire) that
    would likely run OK with FIFO's for IPC
(4) a Minix compatible filesystem (so MiNT programs could read/write
    minix files) would be very useful
(5) anyone want to try an X server?
(6) a multitasking desktop, e.g. a MiNT aware Gemini
(7) a multitasking replacement for GEM. This one will be a lot of work,
    but the potential payoffs are great. Basing it on top of X or MGR
    might save some work, and make it network-transparent to boot. (I have
    a version of MGR that runs under MiNT).
(8) a TT aware version of MiNT. This shouldn't be hard, actually, since
    there are only a few assembler files that would need changing. Adding
    memory protection to processes would be harder, but useful. Adding
    virtual memory would be harder still, but even more useful. If you do
    it, please post the diffs or send them to me!

The conditions for distribution are spelled out in the file "copying";
this program is freeware, but it is *not* public domain. If you want
to distribute MiNT with a commercial product, please contact me -- I'm
sure we can work something out. If you come up with improvements and
bug fixes for MiNT, please mail them to me and/or post them to Usenet.
Please do *not* change the version number of MiNT, or distribute modified
copies under the name MiNT (call it "newmint", or "better", or whatever).
I want to make sure that when people talk about "MiNT version x.y",
everyone's talking about the same thing.

MiNT is not shareware, so you're not obliged to send me any money if
you use it. However, if you like MiNT and decide it's worth a contribution
(of whatever size), it will be gratefully accepted and used to finance
further work on MiNT and other freeware programs. Sending
bug fixes and improvements is also a nice way to show your appreciation
and to help better the system. It is my sincere hope that MiNT will
stimulate a great deal of good multitasking software for the ST, and will
make programmers' lives much easier.

My address is:
--
Eric R. Smith                     email:
Dept. of Mathematics            eric.smith@uwo.ca
University of Western Ontario   ersmith@uwovax.bitnet
London, Ont. Canada N6A 5B7
ph: (519) 661-3638
