HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: gregh@cserver.plexus.com (Greg Hawley)
Subject: MINIX Book Question
Organization: Plexus Corp. -- Neenah Wisconsin
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 15:55:01 GMT

I just tried to order Andy's book -- Operating Systems: Design and
Impmentation (the one with MINIX 1.0 code).  The book club we do business
with, the Small Computer Book Club, sent me an out of stock notice.
After contacting them, I found that the book is permanently out of
stock.  Because the edition is copyrighted 1986, the operator
suggested that maybe this was because the book may soon be 
released in a new edition.  Is there any truth to this rumour?

I would like to purchase the book, but I was hoping to get the better
price we have through the club.  What's up?  What depressing holiday
news.

---Greg
+---------------------------+----------------------------+-----------------+
|  __     __          ___   |  Greg Hawley               |  Expressed      |
| /  \|  /   \ / |  | \     |  Technology Group Inc.     |  Opinions are   |
| +--/|  +--  X  |  |  \    |  55 Jewelers Park Drive    |  mine and not   |
| |   \__\__ / \ \__/ __\   |  Neenah WI 54956           |  of Technology  |
|                           |  gregh@cserver.plexus.com  |  Group Inc. or  |
|  Technology Group Inc.    |  414-722-8748              |  Plexus Corp.   |
+---------------------------+----------------------------+-----------------+
From: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: About the ACK ANSI compiler... [not the
Date: 29 Dec 92 22:13:05 GMT
Organization: Fac. Wiskunde & Informatica, VU, Amsterdam

In article <1992Dec29.172058.25239@sae.com> malay@sae.com writes:
>In article Cqr@cs.vu.nl, ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) writes:
>>In article <103121@netnews.upenn.edu> yee@mipg.upenn.edu (Conway Yee) writes:
>The only problem with this is the price - they US version is $199 - I paid
>much less than this for the entire PH 1.5 distribution. Something seems
>strange about having to buy a $199 C compiler in order to upgrade from 1.5 to
>the most recent version of 1.6 

There are many game programs around for MS-DOS that cost more than MS-DOS 5.0
itself.  There are word processing programs for MS-DOS that cost a multiple of
what MS-DOS costs.  Nowhere does it say that operating systems have to be
expensive :-)

But that is beside the point.  You can upgrade to 1.6.24 with the old K&R
compiler.  I spent weeks making that possible, although I had plenty of other
things to do.  Nevertheless, the future of C is ANSI C and a package
containing an ANSI C compiler, a Pascal compiler, and a Modula 2 compiler for
$199 is not more expensive than these three compilers cost together for MS-DOS.

Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
From: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Subject: Re: MINIX Book Question
Organization: Fac. Wiskunde & Informatica, VU, Amsterdam
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 20:44:48 GMT

In article <gregh.725126101@cserver> gregh@cserver.plexus.com (Greg Hawley) writes:
>I just tried to order Andy's book -- Operating Systems: Design and
>Impmentation (the one with MINIX 1.0 code).  The book club we do business
>with, the Small Computer Book Club, sent me an out of stock notice.

Book clubs buy a limited number of books.  When they are gone, they are gone.
Publishers treat book clubs are a necessary evil.  They like them because the
clubs generate publicity for new books, but they dislike them because the 
book clubs demand and get a large discount.  The MINIX book is still
available from PH.  Any bookstore can order it from them.  The next edition
is still a couple of years away.

On the other hand, MINIX 1.6.24b (Second beta release) is only hours away.
Watch this space.

Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
From: Jeremy R Bennett <hilander@silver.lcs.mit.edu>
Subject: help
Originator: mmdf@louie.udel.edu
Organization: University of Delaware
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 15:59:39 GMT

how do i unsubscribe!?!!! argh
(from the liste   lister.. arrr.. listserver  at udel.edu)
-- 
  /_/ ^ / _-  __  _ / _- -_      hilander@silver.lcs.mit.edu
 / / / / /_/- // |_/ /_  /       bennettj@willow.ulowell.edu
                 
     -------------------------------------------------
-- 
Mail System (MMDF)
From: root@frmxqnx.hanse.de (Frank Rabe)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Distribution: world
Subject: Re: About the ACK ANSI compiler... [not the
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4
Organization: frmxqnx running Minix-386
Date: Fri,  1 Jan 93 20:19:20 +0100

yee@mipg.upenn.edu (Conway Yee) writes:
: About using GCC, I am under the impression that you need the MINIX 386 
: extensions in order to use it.  The limitations of out-of-the-box MINIX 
: is far too restrictive.  I note that the out-of-the-box LINUX will run
: GCC and other freely-redistributable tools quite happily.
: 
Yes, you need MINIX 386 to run GCC and it is big and slow.
I believe there is no way of porting GCC to all minix platforms.
But is this also true for the cvw4.1 compiler. 
It is my main compiler under MINIX 386 and it does a famous job.
Cvw4.1 is also available for 68000 minix's. There is a new bcc-as and bcc-ld
which supports floating point and someone have posted diffs to use them 
under MINIX 386. Cvw4.1 is not ANSI but comes closer.

So, you minix compiler experts, what do you thing?

A free minix compiler with source, small and fast, but not complete ANSI 
would be better then a ANSI(?) compiler without source for 199$.

Enjoy,

Frank
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
From: Glen Cornell <gcornell%core1@kssib.ksc.nasa.gov>
Subject: unsubscribe
Originator: mmdf@louie.udel.edu
Organization: University of Delaware
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 12:57:39 GMT


please unsubscribe me

-----------------------------------------------------------
 Glen Cornell             Harris Space Systems Corporation
 Office: 505              Engineer SW - UNIX Analyst CADCO
 e-mail: gcornell@core1.hssc.ksc.nasa.gov
-----------------------------------------------------------
-- 
Mail System (MMDF)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
From: ishwar@sol.cs.wmich.edu (Ishwar Rattan)
Subject: junk
Organization: Western Michigan Univ. Comp. Sci. Dept.
Distribution: usa
Date: Sun, 27 Dec 1992 15:39:05 GMT


Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
From: malay@sae.com (Bob Malay)
Subject: Re: About the ACK ANSI compiler... [not the
Reply-To: malay@sae.com
Organization: Template Software
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 17:20:58 GMT

In article Cqr@cs.vu.nl, ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) writes:
>In article <103121@netnews.upenn.edu> yee@mipg.upenn.edu (Conway Yee) writes:
>>OK.  I've gotta question.  I know that PH1.5.10 was shipped with the ACK K&R
>>compiler and that the new ACK ANSI compiler is not available for ftp.  Thus,
>>few should have access to the ACK ANSI compiler.  Exactly who is this privileged
>>subset who can compile MINIX with the "preferred" compiler?
>
>Both Unipress and Transmediair have a package for sale containing
>
>   (1) The ANSI C compiler for MINIX
>   (2) A pascal compiler for MINIX
>   (3) A Modula 2 compiler for MINIX
>


The only problem with this is the price - they US version is $199 - I paid
much less than this for the entire PH 1.5 distribution. Something seems
strange about having to buy a $199 C compiler in order to upgrade from 1.5 to
the most recent version of 1.6 - if this is the case, then the 1.6 upgrade
should also be available as pre-compiled binaries/libraries/boot_disk.

Bob Malay
From: yee@mipg.upenn.edu (Conway Yee)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: About the ACK ANSI compiler... [not the usual where can I get it query]
Date: 24 Dec 92 01:06:26 GMT
Organization: University of Pennsylvania

ast writes:
>It [the beta version of MINIX] has been tested with both the new
>ANSI ACK compiler (definitely the preferred one), and the original K&R ACK
>compiler.`

OK.  I've gotta question.  I know that PH1.5.10 was shipped with the ACK K&R
compiler and that the new ACK ANSI compiler is not available for ftp.  Thus,
few should have access to the ACK ANSI compiler.  Exactly who is this privileged
subset who can compile MINIX with the "preferred" compiler?


-- 
411 Blockley Hall      |                    Conway Yee, N2JWQ
418 Service Drive      | yee@ming.mipg.upenn.edu    (preferred)
Philadelphia, PA 19104 | cy5@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (forwarded to above)
(215) 662-6780         |
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
From: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Subject: Re: PC emulator for Sparc, etc. to run minix
Organization: Fac. Wiskunde & Informatica, VU, Amsterdam
Date: Fri, 1 Jan 1993 17:57:38 GMT

In article <1993Jan1.045045.29331@ra.msstate.edu> hybowie@sunvis1.vislab.olemiss.edu (Reagen B. Ward (not my account)) writes:
>I heard of a 8086/88 emulator that lets me run pc-minix on a Sparc.
>Does anyone have any info on it?

The simulator is a C program that interprets the 8088 instruction set and
enough of the I/O to run MINIX.  It is available for free by FTP from
ftp.cs.vu.nl in directory minix/simulator.

Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
From: Lal Pratap Saran Singh <3NG5FYR@cmuvm.csv.cmich.edu>
Subject: (none given)
Originator: mmdf@louie.udel.edu
Organization: Central Michigan University
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 15:34:37 GMT

SIGNOFF MINIX-L 3NG5FYR@CMUVM.BITNET
-- 
Mail System (MMDF)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
From: Glen Cornell <gcornell%core1@kssib.ksc.nasa.gov>
Subject: cancel
Originator: mmdf@louie.udel.edu
Organization: University of Delaware
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 20:55:21 GMT


I've already tried this but it hasn't worked:

please unsubscribe or cancel my subscription to the MINIX news group.

thanks

glenco


-----------------------------------------------------------
 Glen Cornell             Harris Space Systems Corporation
 Office: 505              Engineer SW - UNIX Analyst CADCO
 e-mail: gcornell@core1.hssc.ksc.nasa.gov
-----------------------------------------------------------
-- 
Mail System (MMDF)
From: yee@mipg.upenn.edu (Conway Yee)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: About the ACK ANSI compiler... [not the
Date: 30 Dec 92 20:02:58 GMT
Organization: University of Pennsylvania

First of all, I would like to defend ast on this one.  The ANSI ACK compiler
is his to sell (though a publisher) and it is up to him to decide on a "fair"
price.  The market, however, in all likelihood disagrees; I'm sure that there
are very few ANSI ACK compilers sold.  I, too, would agree that $200 for an
undocumented C compiler (if indeed that is what it is) is too much.  Yes,
I do get a Modula and Pascal compiler along with it but I have no need for
it.  It is sort of like the new car salesman so says, "yes, the car costs
$20 but in order to buy it you must buy a set of $23,000 hubcaps."  As far
as I am concerned, it is a C compiler.  The question, them becomes, is the
C compiler worth $200?

About using GCC, I am under the impression that you need the MINIX 386 
extensions in order to use it.  The limitations of out-of-the-box MINIX 
is far too restrictive.  I note that the out-of-the-box LINUX will run
GCC and other freely-redistributable tools quite happily.


-- 
411 Blockley Hall      |                    Conway Yee, N2JWQ
418 Service Drive      | yee@ming.mipg.upenn.edu    (preferred)
Philadelphia, PA 19104 | cy5@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (forwarded to above)
(215) 662-6780         |
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
From: henrik@husc.harvard.edu
Subject: Interprocess communication at user level
Originator: mmdf@louie.udel.edu
Organization: University of Delaware
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 16:57:00 GMT


Well, the problem is that user processes work in the opposite fashion from
the system processes (like FS and MM), expecting to send a message and
get a response, rather than they other way round.  Recall that all user
processes use sendrec() to communicate with the lower layers.

While it would not be impossible to allow processes to send messages to
each other directly, it would require two things - knowledge of the
underlying message-passing interface (as opposed to the Unix system call
library), and some measure of security (who can send who a process, etc.).

In theory you might construct another user process (like a network license
server, say) that would be modelled after MM/FS, but you would probably 
run it as part of the third layer, to avoid the problems above.

If you're looking for more general IPC, you might consider implementing
one of the more popular Unix mechanisms in terms of the message-passing
interface rather than exposing that directly - it would have the advantage
of portability, and would probably provide a better general framework
than the message-passing calls.

					larry...

-- 
Mail System (MMDF)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: GNU
From: chanson@mtlookitthat.chi.il.us (Chris Hanson)
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 92 00:36:24 CDT
X-Mailer: Fernmail 1.1 (unregistered, shareware fee not paid)

"Glen Lalonde (448-4278)" <glalonde@vnet.ibm.com> writes:
> The binary for GNU v 1.3 is on plains.nodak.edu, I forget the
> directory though, something like mincin/68k/gcc

Thanx to everyone who's pointed this stuff out to me -- I really
appreciate your help in my efforts to provide Yet Another Free OS (yes,
mine won't even be CopyLeft-Encumbered -- no flames on this please).

> Let us know if you ever get Mach Up and working. I do hope your
> using an accelerator and not a mac //. Otherwise you will find that
> the MMU is in use, even without VM turned on, thus Mach may not be able
> to use the MMU for its purposes. Good luck.

I am using a Mac II -- A IIci to be specific.  The thing is, I plan on
abandoning the MacOS and even Minix when Mach starts up.  Therefore,
the MMU is not needed.  The bootstrap will start up from disk and
automatically load Mach (I have a utility to make a boot disk out of
any random Minix binary, which is what the microkernel will be at
first). Once the kernel starts, it'll figure out via table-walking
where in RAM it's located and then it'll set up its own tables.  Or the
bootstrap could just turn off the MMU, load Mach off the disk into
physical RAM at a known location, and start it from there.  I dunno --
I've got to compile the thing first.  Watch comp.os.mach for news.

CYA, Chris
---
Chris Hanson -- chanson@mtlookitthat.chi.il.us
"Join the Illuminati and see the world... differently."
 -- SJG GURPS Illuminati manual
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
From:     Postmaster@vsdec.nusc.navy.mil
Subject:  Undeliverable Mail
Originator: mmdf@louie.udel.edu
Organization: University of Delaware
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 08:38:52 GMT

Bad address -- <thanos>
Error -- %MAIL-E-OPENOUT, error opening SQQ89_USER1:[THANOS.MAIL]MAIL.MAI; as output; -SYSTEM-F-IVDEVNAM, invalid device name

Start of returned message

  Received: from nl.nusc.navy.mil ([129.190.70.4]) by VSDEC.NUSC.NAVY.MIL with SMTP; 
            Tue, 29 Dec 1992 3:38:46 -0500 (EST)
  Date: 29 Dec 92 03:38:00 EST
  From: INFO-MINIX@UDEL.EDU
  Subject: minicom
  To: "thanos" <thanos@vsdec.nusc.navy.mil>
  
  Return-Path: <@VM1.NoDak.EDU:INFO-MINIX-ERRORS@PLAINS.NODAK.EDU>
  Received: from VM1.NoDak.EDU by nl.nusc.navy.mil with SMTP ; 
            Tue, 29 Dec 92 03:38:37 EST
  Received: from NDSUVM1.BITNET by VM1.NoDak.EDU (IBM VM SMTP V2R2)
     with BSMTP id 5096; Tue, 29 Dec 92 02:37:16 CST
  Received: from NDSUVM1.BITNET by NDSUVM1.BITNET (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id
   0428; Tue, 29 Dec 92 02:37:15 CST
  Date:         Mon, 28 Dec 1992 17:06:44 GMT
  Reply-To:     INFO-MINIX@UDEL.EDU
  Sender:       INFO-MINIX-ERRORS@PLAINS.NODAK.EDU
  Comments:     Warning -- original Sender: tag was info-minix-request@UDEL.EDU
  From:         Laszlo Herczeg <las@CAMARO.UUCP>
  Subject:      minicom
  Comments: To: info-minix@udel.edu
  To:           Multiple recipients of list MINIX-L <MINIX-L@VM1.NoDak.EDU>
  
  Hello everyone,
  I have heard of a program called MINICOM which is a comm program for MINIX.
  
  Could someone tell me if it is available for ftp and if so, where?
  
  Also, if you are using this program, can you tell me about its features and/or
  bugs. (The assumption being that what is for one a feature can be a bug for
  another. )
   Any pointers will be appreciated.
  Laszlo
  

End of returned message
-- 
Mail System (MMDF)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
From: bde@runx.oz.au (Bruce Evans)
Subject: Unpacking 1.6.24b/commands.sh.Z
Organization: RUNX Un*x Timeshare.  Sydney, Australia.
Date: Sun, 3 Jan 93 03:31:35 GMT

The commands packaging has a few bugs.

1. hypenate.c contains some German characters (>= 128) in a comment.  This
   confuses unshar into thinking that the file is binary, and the file
   gets truncated.  The bash shell unsharred it correctly.  I think unshar
   would handle characters >= 128 correctly if the special handling of such
   characters was removed.  Character 0 is not handled specially but should
   be.

2. The leading X is missing in some places in the shar file.  This is
   probably a bug in the shar binary used to pack the distribution.  My
   binary works OK.  I think the recent posting of unshar.c was to allow
   unshar to handle such shar files.  unshar _was_ buggy because the
   leading X is optional in most cases.  patch apparently doesn't handle
   optional leading X's.  I used "patch <commands.cd" to apply the diffs
   (I don't trust installs scripts).  This failed on files btoa.c and
   ifdef.c because of missing X's.  It works to unshar all the diffs
   and apply them individually or with "cat *.d | patch".

Why is the shar format still being used?  It is appropriate for text
postings, but (compressed non-uuencrufted) tar format works better for
binary nonpostings.
-- 
Bruce Evans  (bde@runx.oz.au)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
From: hybowie@sunvis1.vislab.olemiss.edu (Reagen B. Ward (not my account))
Subject: PC emulator for Sparc, etc. to run minix
Organization: CCHE
Date: Fri, 1 Jan 1993 04:50:45 GMT

I heard of a 8086/88 emulator that lets me run pc-minix on a Sparc.
Does anyone have any info on it?
I'm not looking for a Sun version of Minix, but the emulator itself.

Please reply to:
ward@hydra.cche.olemiss.edu
Thanks.
-Reagen B. Ward
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
From: bde@runx.oz.au (Bruce Evans)
Subject: Re: About the ACK ANSI compiler... [not the
Organization: RUNX Un*x Timeshare.  Sydney, Australia.
Date: Fri, 1 Jan 93 06:21:40 GMT

In article <1992Dec31.180247.4503@crash> cwr@crash.cts.com (Will Rose) writes:
>
>Could you compile 1.5.10 on a 386, using gcc, and still have it run
>or are the 386 patches mandatory in this environment?  If so, with

No, because gcc only produces 32-bit code.  However, you can compile 1.5.10
on an 8086-80486 using my compiler.   The 16-bit compiler binaries and
patches for this are all in the 1990 release of "Minix-386".  The patches
relevant to 16-bit mode are mostly compiler support routines and bug fixes.
-- 
Bruce Evans  (bde@runx.oz.au)
From: newton@monty.apana.org.au (Mark Newton)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Distribution: world
Subject: Re: minicom
Organization: APANA South Australia - State mail hub
Date: Fri,  1 Jan 93 19:18:45 +1030

hock@werple.apana.org.au (Warwick Hockley) writes:
> At the moment I can't even get login to work properly with a modem.  I have
> to wait until the local modem has answered and hand shaking has taken place,
> then kill login.  Init starts a new login, and this one works - ie, gives a
> login message.  Everything is OK from there on.  But you can't take this 
> seriously as a way to work.

Actually, answering the phone isn't login's job;  that task is supposed
to be handled by getty.  By the time login starts up, the line should have
been ioctl()'ed to the right baud rate, etc.

The problem is that the MINIX getty is woefully inadequate for the
job (Sorry, Fred!  I'm not criticizing you, just your getty :-).  One
would have thought that detecting the speed of an incoming modem
connection was precisely the sort of thing that getty was supposed to
do, but 1.5.10 getty hardly ever gets it right.

I believe the problem is in the detection of line breaks.  Sending
a line break is easy (drop the baud rate to 300bps and send some nulls),
but detecting an incoming line break is not really something that the
MINIX kernel is very good at.  I am still critical of the standard
getty despite the fact that it's the kernel's fault because getty 
should have been designed to use something other than line breaks
to detect the speed of incoming connections.

Before I set up my machine for public access, I spent a day or so hacking
/real/ speed detection stuff into getty.  Now, if my getty is called with
the -m flag, it sits on the line waiting for a CONNECT message.  When it
finds it, it just reads the baud rate of the new connection straight from
the serial port.

THIS WORKS, every time, without fail.  The line break solution basically
never worked.

Now, why couldn't the original getty have been written like this, instead
of depending on something as unreliable as line breaks for switching
baud rates?

BTW, I acknowledge that my Amiga hardware will have a different rs232
driver to the PeeCees, and that the PeeCee rs232 driver might be better
at catching breaks.  If that is the case, then my criticism is undoubtably
given from a 68000 bias, and should be read as such.  Warwick's comments
tend to suggest that the intel boxes share the same problems, though.

   - mark

--------------------------------------------------------------------
"Do not worry about an infinite            newton@monty.apana.org.au
supply of gibbons..." - Al Dearle                        Mark Newton
--------------------------------------------------------------------
From: kjb@cs.vu.nl (Kees J. Bot)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: more FDC_MAX_RETRY (was HELP, .. on Gateway 2000 486/33)
Date: 21 Dec 92 09:01:54 GMT
Organization: Fac. Wiskunde & Informatica, VU, Amsterdam

nemossan@uitec.ac.jp (Sakurao NEMOTO) writes:
>Thus, I saw source-codes of kernel/floppy.c, there such codes have been
>found;
>------------------------------------------------
>	const MAX_FDC_RETRY = 100;
>		|
>	retries := MAX_FDC_RETRY;
>	while not ready do begin
>	   DEC(retries);
>	   if retries <= 0 then exit(IOerror);
>	end;
>	fdc_out(port,val);
>	exit(NOerror);
>------------------------------------------------

The floppy.c in the upcoming 1.6.24 release will have it like this:

  retries = MAX_FDC_RETRY + FDC_TIMEOUT;
  while (TRUE) {
	real_action_here();

        if (retries < FDC_TIMEOUT) milli_delay(1);      /* take it slow now */
        if (--retries == 0) break;      /* time out */
  }

with MAX_FDC_RETRY set to 10000 and FDC_TIMEOUT at 500.  So even if
your 586/333 can poll 10000 times without the FDC reacting, it will try
a guaranteed 500 millisec longer before giving up.

For your next floppy driver bug, try copying data from one floppy drive
to another.  Watch the motor of drive X being turned off when drive Y is
accessed (don't look at the light, put your ear against the drive).  The
code worked before scattered I/O was invented, so don't blame its author.
--
	                        Kees J. Bot  (kjb@cs.vu.nl)
	              Systems Programmer, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
From: philipg@netcom.com (Philip Gearhart)
Subject: Re: MINIX Book Question
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 21:45:41 GMT

Greg:

I don't know if the book is truly out-of-print (as opposed to SCBC
out-of-print). But you might try a book store out here in California.
They might have some copies left (if it's truly out-of-print). The
particulars are:

	Computer Literacy Bookshops
	2590 North First Street
	San Jose, CA 95131
	Voice: (408)435-0744
	E-Mail: info@clbooks.com

I'm also a member of SCBC and their "out-ofprint" sometimes means that
there isn't enough interest in the book anymore for them to keep it in
stock. Tannenbaum has also come out with a newer book (but not for MINIX)
which SCBC probably has in stock.

Good luck!

Newsgroups: comp.os.minix