Re: [MiNT] FreeMiNT history...

[Teemu Hukkanen <tjhukkan@fishpool.fi>]

George Crissman <strads@tmisnet.com> writes:

> AK> This may be a bit unusual...
> 
> AK> Can someone tell me how exactly MiNT becomed opensource? Was it Atari 
> AK> decision, or there was just "leak" from laboratories?

> If I remember correctly, MiNT ("Mint is Not TOS") was
> originally a project by Eric R. Smith ... and once he
> got it going, he posted it and said others could work
> on it if they wanted.
>
> Atari apparently got ahold of it ... changed the name
> of the acronym ("Mint is Now TOS") and adopted it.
> I do not know if it's the same as MultiTOS or not.

Atari hired Eric to work on MultiTOS.

> MiNT is (apparently) based on FreeBSD Unix, which
> explains why it is so robust and has so many unix-like
> utilities and applications.

Your guess is incorrect, MiNT is technically not based on anything else,
the closest relation is to minix, but the codebase is separate.

If you need more information, look at the documentation in the
pre-freemint releases.