I'm looking for something Unix-ey to run on this 80286 system. It
has 640KB RAM, and uses prorietary memory modules, so even Minix is
going to be an extremely tight fit. Mostly out of curiosity, I'd like
to try Xenix on it.
I was told a month or so back that Minix 1.5.10 is now available for
downloading. I ran that on an XT (8088) with 640K RAM and it didn't seem
that tight.
Minix runs a bit tight in 640K. For example you can't compile the
kernel in 640K. I also don't think Minix will switch into protected
mode in less than 1024K. You might want to do a Google search to see
what state ELKS (the Embeddable Linux Kernel Subsystem) ended up in.
It might give you a bit more room than Minix (which was really
assuming it would be run in more that 640K). Again that was mostly
cross compiled. ELKS, I believe, is small model userland code. Minix
(again according to my often faulty memory) is large model. Can't
recall which model Coherent used.
Don't know too much about which memory model Xenix used. From the
looks of it, it might have supported huge model code.
Remember that if your system has an ISA bus, you can put more memory
right on the bus. There must be a lot of ISA memory cards floating
around. (I think I have four in various states of use/disuse).
Depending upon the processor speed and the bus speed you might not
even get a speed hit for ISA memory. Most 16 bit EMS cards would also
show the memory as extended memory rather than expanded.
