minix meaning

• [Computer]
  <operating system> /MIN-ix/ A small operating system that is very similar to UNIX. MINIX was written for educational purposes by Prof. Andrew S. Tanenbaum of Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam.
  
  MINIX has been written from scratch and contains no AT&T code -- neither in the kernel, the compiler, the utilities, nor the libraries. Although copyrighted by Prentice-Hall, all sources, binaries and documentation can be obtained via Internet for educational or research purposes.
  
  Current versions as of 1996-11-15:
  
  MINIX 2.0 - Intel CPUs from Intel 8088 to Pentium
  
  MINIX 1.5 - Intel, Macintosh (MacMinix), Amiga, Atari ST, Sun SPARC.

Examples

1. minix 3 is a small free unix clone designed for very high reliability
2. MINIX 1 was system-call compatible with Seventh Edition Unix.
3. MINIX 3 currently supports IA-32 and ARM architecture systems.
4. MINIX 3 . 2 . 0 was released in February 2012.
5. MINIX 3 . 3 . 0 was released in September 2014.