During the pandemic, I found myself unemployed with mountains of free time.

I knew I specifically wanted to dig into minix as a pastime. In my mind, the text book(s), and a fully featured Unix with a small code base were a unique combination...

That is, until I sat down to actually buy the book. The $200 price tag was beyond sticker shock. It was literally offensive.

I didn’t take long to find Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces (OSTEP)[1]. The book can be had for Legally FREE or Affordable. And the introduction contained (among everything else) a brief manifesto admonishing the crazy high prices of college text books.

The book is funny, technically excellent, and also features a tiny-sized Unix like operating system: xv6.

Pouring my hours into this book and learning the XV6 operating system was time well spent.

[1]: https://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~remzi/OSTEP/?source=techstories.o...