microport memory

[Charles Hedrick]

Shiv Haris asks about the minimum amount of memory needed to run
Microport Unix.  I found that Microport SV/AT (i.e. for 286) ran
usefully in a 1MB machine.  Compiles were very slow, but the system
were still tolerable.  I'd think anything less than that would get
exponentially worse.  I ran in 1MB for a few weeks, but quickly
decided that 1.5 was the minimum I'd tolerate.  That extra 512K did
make a noticable difference, but I wouldn't say 1M was too painful.
Note that I am using a bare minimum system: a single user on the
console, and no daemons other than the print spooler.

However I am reluctant to recommend SV/AT in any configuration, lest I
mislead people into believing that I endorse it.  I had originally
written a long paragraph describing the reasons I can't stand SV/AT.
(My problems are not with Microport specifically, by the way, but with
System V.)  Because this group has generally been mercifully free of
flames, I've decided to omit it.  However I would like to be sure that
no one interprets my participation in this group as meaning that I
consider system V release 2 as an acceptable operating system,
particularly for a personal computer.