From owner-freebsd-sparc Mon Jan 4 08:09:55 1999 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id IAA00459 for freebsd-sparc-outgoing; Mon, 4 Jan 1999 08:09:55 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from alpha.netaccess.on.ca (netaccess.on.ca [199.243.225.10]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id IAA00454 for ; Mon, 4 Jan 1999 08:09:53 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from rob@ControlQ.com) Received: from fatlady.controlq.com (dial091.netaccess.on.ca [199.243.225.219]) by alpha.netaccess.on.ca (8.8.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id LAA14102; Mon, 4 Jan 1999 11:05:26 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1999 11:11:43 -0500 (EST) From: "Robert S. Sciuk" To: Paolo Di Francesco cc: Wes Peters , freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Read this... In-Reply-To: <19981231132024.BNEK27753.fep04-svc@winworkstation> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Thu, 31 Dec 1998, Paolo Di Francesco wrote: > > > So why not buy an older SPARC, for far less money, and work on that? > > Much of what you learn will be portable to the UltraSPARC system later > > on, and these machines are fantastically reliable. > > > > 1) We are starting now with the kernel. Maybe in late 1999 we'll have > something working on Ultra. So what will be developed now will be used > in the Y2K. I don't think that to develop on an old sparc is so > exciting. 8) Perhaps not exciting, but surely useful to owners of Sparc 4x machines. I've just installed the latest Solaris on an IPX box, but would have preferred to put FreeBSD on it if available -- Linux, well, no. IMHO if some care is taken in the wordsize/alignment issues, then the incremental backport from Ultra to 4x can be reduced to driver/bus issues, and we can eventually have our cake (Ultra) and icing (Sparc 4x) as well. > > 2) For old sparc there is Linux, but on Ultra there is less support. doh! ... > > When Dayna Communications was "assimilated" into the Intel intranet in > > January of this year, they retired their DNS and mail server, which was > > a SPARCstation SLC manufactured in 1990. When it was shutdown, it had > > been up for over 200 days, because it had been neglected since the Intel > > acquisition. Before that, the engineer in charge of it would reboot it > > twice a year, on Dec 24 and July 3, "just to be safe." ;^) > BTW: I've seen Intel h/w run in excess of 200 days, down only for power outages, but they were either running Unix or NetWare. I've never seen a Gates supplied virus come even close to that level of stability. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Robert S. Sciuk 1032 Howard Rd. PO Box 6A Ph:905 632-2466 Control-Q Research Burlington, Ont. Canada Fx:905 632-7417 rob@ControlQ.com L7R 3X5 http://www.ControlQ.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-sparc" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-sparc Mon Jan 4 08:11:48 1999 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id IAA00685 for freebsd-sparc-outgoing; Mon, 4 Jan 1999 08:11:48 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from obie.softweyr.com ([204.68.178.33]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id IAA00676 for ; Mon, 4 Jan 1999 08:11:46 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from wes@softweyr.com) Received: from softweyr.com (zaphod.softweyr.com [204.68.178.35]) by obie.softweyr.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id JAA16063; Mon, 4 Jan 1999 09:11:09 -0700 (MST) (envelope-from wes@softweyr.com) Message-ID: <3690E81D.34FDF480@softweyr.com> Date: Mon, 04 Jan 1999 09:11:09 -0700 From: Wes Peters Organization: Softweyr llc X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 [en] (X11; U; FreeBSD 3.0-RELEASE i386) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "Robert S. Sciuk" CC: Paolo Di Francesco , freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Read this... References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org "Robert S. Sciuk" wrote: > > BTW: I've seen Intel h/w run in excess of 200 days, down only for power > outages, but they were either running Unix or NetWare. I've never seen a > Gates supplied virus come even close to that level of stability. I guess you haven't been around for the occasional "uptime wars" in FreeBSD-chat, huh? Some of the uptimes reported there are pretty remarkable, I've seen a few above 400 days. No, the crashing generally isn't a hardware problem. ;^) I have to call GSTek and order some IPXs today. Then I have to go find some disk drives for them. This should be fun... -- "Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?" Wes Peters Softweyr LLC http://www.softweyr.com/~softweyr wes@softweyr.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-sparc" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-sparc Mon Jan 4 08:29:51 1999 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id IAA02560 for freebsd-sparc-outgoing; Mon, 4 Jan 1999 08:29:51 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from piinbh1.ms.com (piinbh1.ms.com [199.89.64.71]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id IAA02555 for ; Mon, 4 Jan 1999 08:29:49 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from schmidtw@ms.com) Received: (from uucp@localhost) by piinbh1.ms.com (8.8.6/fw v1.22) id LAA07569; Mon, 4 Jan 1999 11:29:22 -0500 (EST) Received: from unknown(144.14.19.186) by piinbh1.ms.com via smap (4.1) id xma006724; Mon, 4 Jan 99 11:28:31 -0500 Received: from ms.com (saitpc997.morgan.com [144.14.42.143]) by sasmh1.ms.com (8.8.5/hub+ldap v2.2) with ESMTP id LAA17910; Mon, 4 Jan 1999 11:28:30 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <3690EC31.32BF0172@ms.com> Date: Mon, 04 Jan 1999 11:28:33 -0500 From: Wayne Schmidt Reply-To: schmidtw@ms.com Organization: Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.06 [en] (WinNT; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Wes Peters CC: obrien@NUXI.com, Paolo Di Francesco , freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Read this... References: <368A5778.F86A2695@softweyr.com> <19981231132024.BNEK27753.fep04-svc@winworkstation> <19981231095614.D15141@nuxi.com> <368BD135.8038D631@softweyr.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Umm.. this is just a comment, but why not use an accelerator board for a sparc10 or 20? Picking something like, the cyclom boards, or Axil ( I think they're still around ) means you could field an Ultra AND a sparc10 for the price of 2 hulks and this board. conversely I think this might be a good way to go since you're looking for proof of concept builds in the short term. --wayne - Wes Peters wrote: > David O'Brien wrote: > > > > > I don't think that to develop on an old sparc is so exciting. 8) > > > > I fail to see the difference in excitement. I'm interested in this > > project *only* to be able to run FreeBSD on my old Sparc 20's. > > Ditto. > > > > 2) For old sparc there is Linux, but on Ultra there is less support. > > > > You mean for old Sparc there is OpenBSD and NetBSD. Linux is *NOT* an > > option. I'm on a BSD list, not a Pingin list. > > ;^) > > > > 3) I don't know anyone who wants to sell his/her old sparc. > > > > see comp.sys.sun.wanted > > Or www.rave.com, or www.solarsys.com, etc. Go to your favorite search > engine and search for "used sparc" or "refurbished sparc". > > Solar Systems has currently listed on their "Specials" page a > SPARC 5/70 for $945, a SPARC 4/110 for $975, and a SPARCclassic > for $695. If you can find one, SPARC ELCs go for about $350 > and IPXs for about $450 these days. > > > > _Personally_ I think Sun could give us the new architecture for the > > > > As a student (or developer) you can get ~40% discount on many models. > > Including (I think) the Ultra-5, which is already pretty cheap by Sun's > standards. ($2995 list gets you a running system sans monitor). > > -- > Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket? > > Wes Peters +1.801.915.2061 > Softweyr LLC wes@softweyr.com > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-sparc" in the body of the message To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-sparc" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-sparc Mon Jan 4 09:02:05 1999 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id JAA06261 for freebsd-sparc-outgoing; Mon, 4 Jan 1999 09:02:05 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from bright.fx.genx.net (bright.fx.genx.net [206.64.4.154]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id JAA06256 for ; Mon, 4 Jan 1999 09:02:03 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from bright@hotjobs.com) Received: from localhost (bright@localhost) by bright.fx.genx.net (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id MAA47932 for ; Mon, 4 Jan 1999 12:05:49 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from bright@hotjobs.com) X-Authentication-Warning: bright.fx.genx.net: bright owned process doing -bs Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1999 12:05:48 -0500 (EST) From: Alfred Perlstein X-Sender: bright@bright.fx.genx.net To: sparc@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: arch questions Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org I was under the impression that the goal of a sparc64 port was a 64 kernel AND a 64 bit userland. It seems that all the ports i've seen have a 64bit kernel and a 32 bit userland. (solaris 7, linux, netbsd (when it's released)) I'm unsure i see the benifit of doing this because: a) the insturctions stay at 32bits wide, so we don't have much bloat to worry about, and we don't incur much penalty for using larger ints. (if we choose to use 64 bit ints) b) using 64bit values/ABI is MUCH cheaper, in fact using old sparc32 methods of accessing memory can seriously hurt performace as several opcodes to access 64bit values in sparc32 code are depreciated and can cause massive pipeline stalling and traps to the OS to emulate certain VERY depreciated opcodes c) the sparc64 FPU is considerably more advanced than the sparc32 FPU, the Y register is depreciated and can cause major performance loss. In fact when i saw how you accomplish an undertermined product of 'x' and 'y' it sort of turned my stomach (jump, setup, 32 mulcc's, ret) The only benifit I see (which doens't apply to us that much) is: If your userland is 32bit, then it's much easier not to have to port that huge section of code. The only reason it might help us is that since intel is 32bit, it may ease the porting by a very small margin, but this doesn't seem to be worth the performance losses i mentioned above, especially in our case when we don't have ANY sparc bits at this point in time. am i missing something? I would like to aim for a 64bit userland to max out the performance of the work. questions? comment? corrections? thanks, Alfred Perlstein - Programmer, HotJobs Inc. - www.hotjobs.com -- There are operating systems, and then there's FreeBSD. -- http://www.freebsd.org/ 3.0-current To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-sparc" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-sparc Mon Jan 4 09:38:12 1999 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id JAA09581 for freebsd-sparc-outgoing; Mon, 4 Jan 1999 09:38:12 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from haldjas.folklore.ee (Haldjas.folklore.ee [193.40.6.121]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id JAA09561 for ; Mon, 4 Jan 1999 09:38:07 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from narvi@haldjas.folklore.ee) Received: from haldjas.folklore.ee (haldjas.folklore.ee [172.17.2.1] (may be forged)) by haldjas.folklore.ee (8.8.8/8.8.4) with SMTP id TAA15106; Mon, 4 Jan 1999 19:37:27 +0200 (EET) Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1999 19:37:27 +0200 (EET) From: Narvi To: Alfred Perlstein cc: sparc@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: arch questions In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Mon, 4 Jan 1999, Alfred Perlstein wrote: > > I was under the impression that the goal of a sparc64 port was a 64 kernel > AND a 64 bit userland. It seems that all the ports i've seen have a 64bit > kernel and a 32 bit userland. (solaris 7, linux, netbsd (when it's > released)) I hope this is so also with FreeBSD. > > I'm unsure i see the benifit of doing this because: > > a) the insturctions stay at 32bits wide, so we don't have much bloat to > worry about, and we don't incur much penalty for using larger ints. (if we > choose to use 64 bit ints) > If possible, we should IMHO try to use the same lengths for int, long, short, etc. on all 64 bit archidectures. That is, the same sizes on Alpha, UltraSparc and MIPS (64bit MIPS, that is). [snip] > If your userland is 32bit, then it's much easier not to have to port that > huge section of code. The only reason it might help us is that since > intel is 32bit, it may ease the porting by a very small margin, but this > doesn't seem to be worth the performance losses i mentioned above, > especially in our case when we don't have ANY sparc bits at this point in > time. > > am i missing something? I would like to aim for a 64bit userland to max > out the performance of the work. You definately are missing the part that with alpha, we already are migrating the userland to 64 bits. > > questions? comment? corrections? > I never thought there was any question about teh bitness of FreeBSD on UltraSparc... > thanks, > Alfred Perlstein - Programmer, HotJobs Inc. - www.hotjobs.com > -- There are operating systems, and then there's FreeBSD. > -- http://www.freebsd.org/ 3.0-current > Sander There is no love, no good, no happiness and no future - all these are just illusions. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-sparc" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-sparc Mon Jan 4 09:50:08 1999 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id JAA11311 for freebsd-sparc-outgoing; Mon, 4 Jan 1999 09:50:08 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from xylan.com (postal.xylan.com [208.8.0.248]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id JAA11290 for ; Mon, 4 Jan 1999 09:50:03 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from wes@softweyr.com) Received: from mailhub.xylan.com by xylan.com (8.8.7/SMI-SVR4 (xylan-mgw 2.2 [OUT])) id JAA28521; Mon, 4 Jan 1999 09:47:56 -0800 (PST) Received: from utah.XYLAN.COM by mailhub.xylan.com (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4 (mailhub 2.1 [HUB])) id JAA26219; Mon, 4 Jan 1999 09:47:54 -0800 Received: from softweyr.com by utah.XYLAN.COM (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4 (xylan utah [SPOOL])) id KAA29945; Mon, 4 Jan 1999 10:47:53 -0700 Message-ID: <3690FEC9.75088C70@softweyr.com> Date: Mon, 04 Jan 1999 10:47:53 -0700 From: Wes Peters Organization: Softweyr LLC X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 [en] (X11; U; FreeBSD 2.2.7-RELEASE i386) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: schmidtw@ms.com CC: obrien@NUXI.com, Paolo Di Francesco , freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Read this... References: <368A5778.F86A2695@softweyr.com> <19981231132024.BNEK27753.fep04-svc@winworkstation> <19981231095614.D15141@nuxi.com> <368BD135.8038D631@softweyr.com> <3690EC31.32BF0172@ms.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Wayne Schmidt wrote: > > Umm.. this is just a comment, but why not use an accelerator board > for a sparc10 or 20? Price. These guys at GSTek have stripped SPARCstations starting at $10, and I already have a bunch of RAM that should work in them. For that price, plus $50 or so for a SCSI-2 1Gig drive, you can't go wrong. I'm not planning on obtaining a SPARC system for my 'main' computer, but rather just for the novelty. It'd take a fair amount of SPARC system to beat My K6-2/333 Mhz, especially when you consider it cost about $550 without a monitor. Who knows, I might even get seduced by OpenBSD or NetBSD. ;^) -- Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket? Wes Peters +1.801.915.2061 Softweyr LLC wes@softweyr.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-sparc" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-sparc Mon Jan 4 09:52:59 1999 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id JAA11826 for freebsd-sparc-outgoing; Mon, 4 Jan 1999 09:52:59 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from xylan.com (postal.xylan.com [208.8.0.248]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id JAA11815 for ; Mon, 4 Jan 1999 09:52:56 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from wes@softweyr.com) Received: from mailhub.xylan.com by xylan.com (8.8.7/SMI-SVR4 (xylan-mgw 2.2 [OUT])) id JAA28709; Mon, 4 Jan 1999 09:52:02 -0800 (PST) Received: from utah.XYLAN.COM by mailhub.xylan.com (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4 (mailhub 2.1 [HUB])) id JAA26467; Mon, 4 Jan 1999 09:52:01 -0800 Received: from softweyr.com by utah.XYLAN.COM (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4 (xylan utah [SPOOL])) id KAA29986; Mon, 4 Jan 1999 10:52:00 -0700 Message-ID: <3690FFC0.5030B5C8@softweyr.com> Date: Mon, 04 Jan 1999 10:52:00 -0700 From: Wes Peters Organization: Softweyr LLC X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 [en] (X11; U; FreeBSD 2.2.7-RELEASE i386) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Alfred Perlstein CC: sparc@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: arch questions References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Alfred Perlstein wrote: > > If your userland is 32bit, then it's much easier not to have to port that > huge section of code. The only reason it might help us is that since > intel is 32bit, it may ease the porting by a very small margin, but this > doesn't seem to be worth the performance losses i mentioned above, > especially in our case when we don't have ANY sparc bits at this point in > time. > > am i missing something? I would like to aim for a 64bit userland to max > out the performance of the work. A good idea, I believe. You might want to check if the FreeBSD-Alpha port already has made much of userland 64-bit clean. I assume so, but have no first-hand knowlege of this. -- Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket? Wes Peters +1.801.915.2061 Softweyr LLC wes@softweyr.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-sparc" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-sparc Mon Jan 4 19:15:25 1999 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id TAA18236 for freebsd-sparc-outgoing; Mon, 4 Jan 1999 19:15:25 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from epistolic.cynic.net (epistolic.cynic.net [199.175.137.136]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id TAA18224 for ; Mon, 4 Jan 1999 19:15:21 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from cjs@cynic.net) Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by epistolic.cynic.net (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with SMTP id TAA12633; Mon, 4 Jan 1999 19:14:28 -0800 (PST) Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1999 19:14:27 -0800 (PST) From: Curt Sampson To: Wes Peters cc: schmidtw@ms.com, obrien@NUXI.com, Paolo Di Francesco , freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Read this... In-Reply-To: <3690FEC9.75088C70@softweyr.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Mon, 4 Jan 1999, Wes Peters wrote: > It'd take a fair amount of SPARC system to > beat My K6-2/333 Mhz, especially when you consider it cost about $550 > without a monitor. When you add the monitor, the sparc becomes a bit more competitive. Old Sun 17" colour monitors with trinitron tubes can be extremely nice to look at, and are a bit cheaper than equivalant-quality 17" monitors for PCs. cjs -- Curt Sampson 604 801 5335 De gustibus, aut bene aut nihil. The most widely ported operating system in the world: http://www.netbsd.org To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-sparc" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-sparc Mon Jan 4 19:16:51 1999 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id TAA18354 for freebsd-sparc-outgoing; Mon, 4 Jan 1999 19:16:51 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from epistolic.cynic.net (epistolic.cynic.net [199.175.137.136]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id TAA18348 for ; Mon, 4 Jan 1999 19:16:49 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from cjs@cynic.net) Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by epistolic.cynic.net (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with SMTP id TAA12659; Mon, 4 Jan 1999 19:16:07 -0800 (PST) Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1999 19:16:07 -0800 (PST) From: Curt Sampson To: Alfred Perlstein cc: sparc@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: arch questions In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Mon, 4 Jan 1999, Alfred Perlstein wrote: > a) the insturctions stay at 32bits wide, so we don't have much bloat to > worry about, and we don't incur much penalty for using larger ints. (if we > choose to use 64 bit ints) You'd probably want to stick with LP64, like the alpha, rather than go to ILP64. I don't really see any gain to ILP64. > b) using 64bit values/ABI is MUCH cheaper, in fact using old sparc32 > methods of accessing memory can seriously hurt performace as several > opcodes to access 64bit values in sparc32 code are depreciated and can > cause massive pipeline stalling and traps to the OS to emulate certain > VERY depreciated opcodes Surely the compiler can be told to avoid this stuff when generating 32-bit code? cjs -- Curt Sampson 604 801 5335 De gustibus, aut bene aut nihil. The most widely ported operating system in the world: http://www.netbsd.org To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-sparc" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-sparc Mon Jan 4 19:45:23 1999 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id TAA21098 for freebsd-sparc-outgoing; Mon, 4 Jan 1999 19:45:23 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from bright.fx.genx.net (bright.fx.genx.net [206.64.4.154]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id TAA21084 for ; Mon, 4 Jan 1999 19:45:21 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from bright@hotjobs.com) Received: from localhost (bright@localhost) by bright.fx.genx.net (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id WAA48870; Mon, 4 Jan 1999 22:49:07 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from bright@hotjobs.com) X-Authentication-Warning: bright.fx.genx.net: bright owned process doing -bs Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1999 22:49:07 -0500 (EST) From: Alfred Perlstein X-Sender: bright@bright.fx.genx.net To: Curt Sampson cc: sparc@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: arch questions In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Mon, 4 Jan 1999, Curt Sampson wrote: > > a) the insturctions stay at 32bits wide, so we don't have much bloat to > > worry about, and we don't incur much penalty for using larger ints. (if we > > choose to use 64 bit ints) > > You'd probably want to stick with LP64, like the alpha, rather than > go to ILP64. I don't really see any gain to ILP64. long and pointer == 64bit? that makes sense. > > > b) using 64bit values/ABI is MUCH cheaper, in fact using old sparc32 > > methods of accessing memory can seriously hurt performace as several > > opcodes to access 64bit values in sparc32 code are depreciated and can > > cause massive pipeline stalling and traps to the OS to emulate certain > > VERY depreciated opcodes > > Surely the compiler can be told to avoid this stuff when generating > 32-bit code? > When i was doing little 'demo' programs for the i386 i would use size override prfix to access 32bit registers from 'real' mode. This doesn't seem to be an option with gcc, either you get usparc, or sparc32, not some hybrid, and when you need to manipulate 64bit data, or multiply/divide/anything you do so in sparc32(v8) opcodes. Since sparc8 is compat with sparc9 you might as well use sparc9. -Alfred > cjs > -- > Curt Sampson 604 801 5335 De gustibus, aut bene aut nihil. > The most widely ported operating system in the world: http://www.netbsd.org > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-sparc" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-sparc Mon Jan 4 23:08:32 1999 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id XAA09430 for freebsd-sparc-outgoing; Mon, 4 Jan 1999 23:08:32 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from obie.softweyr.com ([204.68.178.33]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id XAA09390 for ; Mon, 4 Jan 1999 23:07:49 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from wes@softweyr.com) Received: from softweyr.com (zaphod.softweyr.com [204.68.178.35]) by obie.softweyr.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id AAA17449; Tue, 5 Jan 1999 00:07:04 -0700 (MST) (envelope-from wes@softweyr.com) Message-ID: <3691BA17.74A6F9F4@softweyr.com> Date: Tue, 05 Jan 1999 00:07:03 -0700 From: Wes =?iso-8859-1?Q?Peters=D4?==?iso-8859-1?Q?=40=21=EA?= =?iso-8859-1?Q?=80?==?iso-8859-1?Q?=EA?==?iso-8859-1?Q?=80=DD=E7?= =?iso-8859-1?Q?=805=EA?==?iso-8859-1?Q?=C0?==?iso-8859-1?Q?=EA?= Organization: Softweyr llc X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 [en] (X11; U; FreeBSD 3.0-RELEASE i386) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Curt Sampson CC: schmidtw@ms.com, obrien@NUXI.com, Paolo Di Francesco , freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Read this... References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Curt Sampson wrote: > > On Mon, 4 Jan 1999, Wes Peters wrote: > > > It'd take a fair amount of SPARC system to > > beat My K6-2/333 Mhz, especially when you consider it cost about $550 > > without a monitor. > > When you add the monitor, the sparc becomes a bit more competitive. > Old Sun 17" colour monitors with trinitron tubes can be extremely > nice to look at, and are a bit cheaper than equivalant-quality 17" > monitors for PCs. You're buying your monitors from the wrong place. My local wholesale shop has a lovely Shamrock 17" with a Diamondtron tube for $295, about what the refurbed OLD Sun 17" monitors are going for. They also carry good quality (but not great) 19" monitors starting at $369. -- "Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?" Wes Peters Softweyr LLC http://www.softweyr.com/~softweyr wes@softweyr.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-sparc" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-sparc Tue Jan 5 14:51:01 1999 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id OAA24558 for freebsd-sparc-outgoing; Tue, 5 Jan 1999 14:51:01 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from xylan.com (postal.xylan.com [208.8.0.248]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id OAA24539 for ; Tue, 5 Jan 1999 14:50:58 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from wes@softweyr.com) Received: from mailhub.xylan.com by xylan.com (8.8.7/SMI-SVR4 (xylan-mgw 2.2 [OUT])) id OAA10950; Tue, 5 Jan 1999 14:49:59 -0800 (PST) Received: from utah.XYLAN.COM by mailhub.xylan.com (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4 (mailhub 2.1 [HUB])) id OAA00643; Tue, 5 Jan 1999 14:49:58 -0800 Received: from softweyr.com by utah.XYLAN.COM (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4 (xylan utah [SPOOL])) id PAA13295; Tue, 5 Jan 1999 15:49:56 -0700 Message-ID: <36929714.6873BFF3@softweyr.com> Date: Tue, 05 Jan 1999 15:49:56 -0700 From: Wes Peters Organization: Softweyr LLC X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 [en] (X11; U; FreeBSD 2.2.7-RELEASE i386) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Curt Sampson CC: freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Read this... References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Curt Sampson wrote: > > On Tue, 5 Jan 1999, Wes PetersÔ@!ê ?ê?Ýç ?5êÀê wrote: > > > > When you add the monitor, the sparc becomes a bit more competitive. > > > Old Sun 17" colour monitors with trinitron tubes can be extremely > > > nice to look at, and are a bit cheaper than equivalant-quality 17" > > > monitors for PCs. > > > > You're buying your monitors from the wrong place. My local wholesale > > shop has a lovely Shamrock 17" with a Diamondtron tube for $295.... > > You're buying your Suns from the wrong place. :-) A couple of years > ago I picked up *two* IPXs each with 16 MB RAM, 207 MB disk, 17" > colour monitor and type 5 keyboards and mouse pads for Cdn$500 > total (about US$325--hardly more than the price of one of your > monitors). Actually, given that I just bought 3 IPX's for $35 each, along with 3 207 MB disk for $5 each, we're just about on track. ;^) This was from GSTek, http://www.gstek.com. They should be here Saturday or Monday; I'll post how it goes getting them up and running. What are we here in FreeBSD-SPARC preferring as a porting base these days, NetBSD or OpenBSD? I've got a 1.0 GB drive for mine; I'll put the porting system on that and FreeBSD on the 207 until it matures enough to actually boot, then I can swap'em. And I won't have to worry about those pesky Ultra compiler issues, either. -- Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket? Wes Peters +1.801.915.2061 Softweyr LLC wes@softweyr.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-sparc" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-sparc Tue Jan 5 15:33:38 1999 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id PAA01874 for freebsd-sparc-outgoing; Tue, 5 Jan 1999 15:33:38 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from bright.fx.genx.net (bright.fx.genx.net [206.64.4.154]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id PAA01869 for ; Tue, 5 Jan 1999 15:33:37 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from bright@hotjobs.com) Received: from localhost (bright@localhost) by bright.fx.genx.net (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id SAA50332; Tue, 5 Jan 1999 18:37:25 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from bright@hotjobs.com) X-Authentication-Warning: bright.fx.genx.net: bright owned process doing -bs Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1999 18:37:25 -0500 (EST) From: Alfred Perlstein X-Sender: bright@bright.fx.genx.net To: Wes Peters cc: Curt Sampson , freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Read this... In-Reply-To: <36929714.6873BFF3@softweyr.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Tue, 5 Jan 1999, Wes Peters wrote: > Actually, given that I just bought 3 IPX's for $35 each, along with 3 > 207 MB disk for $5 each, we're just about on track. ;^) > > This was from GSTek, http://www.gstek.com. They should be here Saturday > or Monday; I'll post how it goes getting them up and running. What are > we here in FreeBSD-SPARC preferring as a porting base these days, NetBSD > or OpenBSD? > > I've got a 1.0 GB drive for mine; I'll put the porting system on that > and FreeBSD on the 207 until it matures enough to actually boot, then > I can swap'em. And I won't have to worry about those pesky Ultra > compiler issues, either. good deal. NetBSD seems the base of choice, the snap of egcs they have is pretty good, they already have quite a bit done for ultra sparc as well. Alfred Perlstein - Programmer, HotJobs Inc. - www.hotjobs.com -- There are operating systems, and then there's FreeBSD. -- http://www.freebsd.org/ 3.0-current > -- > Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket? > > Wes Peters +1.801.915.2061 > Softweyr LLC wes@softweyr.com > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-sparc" in the body of the message > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-sparc" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-sparc Wed Jan 6 23:26:58 1999 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id XAA18738 for freebsd-sparc-outgoing; Wed, 6 Jan 1999 23:26:58 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from zippy.cdrom.com (zippy.cdrom.com [204.216.27.228]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id XAA18731 for ; Wed, 6 Jan 1999 23:26:57 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from jkh@zippy.cdrom.com) Received: from zippy.cdrom.com (localhost.cdrom.com [127.0.0.1]) by zippy.cdrom.com (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id XAA00617 for ; Wed, 6 Jan 1999 23:26:36 -0800 (PST) To: sparc@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: All this muttering about support from Sun. Date: Wed, 06 Jan 1999 23:26:35 -0800 Message-ID: <613.915693995@zippy.cdrom.com> From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Sender: owner-freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Hey all, I don't subscribe to this mailing list (I get way too much already) but I did catch some of the discussion on one of the mail2news sites and can only say that I find some of what's been discussed so far to be just a little alarming. I'm also not sure that my role in "rejecting" SME's original offer was all that properly characterized, and the two points are related, so let me see if I can't explain some of the history here and attempt to put things in perspective: First off, I'd like it to be well understood by everyone that when you approach any vendor for FreeBSD-related resources, no matter how big or small, you're essentially now representing the project as far as that vendor is concerned and they're just as likely to assume you're project leadership or something given that most companies are typically pretty confused about how the whole free software world is led and who the key players are (I can't say I'm always all that sure myself). The danger of misrepresenting or overselling the project is a large reason why the original deal with SME was turned down. Even though I myself could probably be said to "lead" the project as much as any individual does, I am still not at all comfortable with the idea of representing the project as a whole when it comes to committing to projects as large as doing and supporting an UltraSPARC port for any reasonable length of time (a port which flares and dies quickly being of no use to either party). Were I to have stood up a year ago and said "OK Sun, I'll take 3 uSPARCs, $20K in direct funding and 100 hours of one of your own developer's time in exchange for a working FreeBSD/uSPARC port", I would have been committing the entire project to far more work and obligation than $20K and 3 machines will frankly buy. It's one thing to do a slap-dash port of FreeBSD to a new architecture just for our own interest and yet another thing entirely to produce a port which works to the satisfaction of a company like Sun, already fussy customers indeed when you realize you're competing to some extent against the Solaris group on their home turf. It was much more likely, given my estimation of our abilities back then time, that we would have simply failed to produce much of anything reasonable in the time allotted (oh, did I also forget to mention that SME wanted the port done in 90 days or less, no-foolin' at all about the schedule?) and the result would have been Sun concluding (quite rightly) that we were a bunch of losers who didn't really know what we were doing. You just can't say you'll do something, impose on some vendor's resources (be it in the form of equipment loans, discounts, cash bribes, *whatever*), and then shrug with a stupid grin on your face when it comes time for you to come up with your end of the deal. We've also shown ourselves to be historically very bad when it comes to doing things to reasonably timely schedules, the DEC Alpha port taking 1.5 years from the moment that DEC gave us the machines to now, where it's actually sort of working. Such a thing would have been completely unacceptable to SME and we just got lucky with Digital in that nobody there really asked us to do the port in any particular timeline, I also getting the machines through a personal contact at DEC which made the whole thing much more low-key and low pressure. So anyway, that's the history up to now and while I'm certainly very glad to see renewed interest in doing a SPARC port again, I hope that everyone involved can keep a similar grip on their perspective when it comes to the more blue-sky aspects of project planning and committments, either direct or implied, with any 3rd party who might be attracted to the idea of having a SPARC port of FreeBSD. It's one thing to say "rah rah, let's do it!" but a very different thing to contemplate FreeBSD/sparc actually being committed to -current and built/released in the same way that FreeBSD/axp and FreeBSD/x86 are; between where you are now and there lie many gates to walk through, filters to satisfy, a core team to convince, you name it! It's also my suggestion that you all start *fist* with the resources already available rather than hoping that Sun will give you a handout in the form of discounts or outright loans/grants, something which will only bring a degree of obligation (nothing comes for free!) into your little project long before any significant amount of code has been written or anything is checked into the tree. That's just not the way it should be done if you're willing to be halfway honest with yourself, and the way I've seen every successful porting effort go to date (observing the NetBSD and Linux folks, among others) has been a small group of 2-3 developers who have the machines and know-how (e.g. NOT novice or beginning people) significantly advancing the port to the point where the other folks can actually jump aboard and start helping with the more mundane stuff. Before that can happen, somebody has to have wrestled with the toolchain issues and a bootstrap environment (NetBSD/Linux/Solaris/whatever), then they need to understand what the architecture specific portions of a FreeBSD system are and get things to the point where an actual FreeBSD kernel is booting single user on an actual SPARC machine of some sort. Once you've reached that milestone, some of the people who don't have pre-existing porting experience can start making more realistic contributions to the port and advance it from the point where it's a technology demonstrator to being an actual "product" in the same way that FreeBSD/x86 is. Not even FreeBSD/alpha is to that point yet, and it has a couple of major coding studs like John Birrell and Doug Rabson working on it. Just something to keep in mind as you contemplate this particular mountain, folks. :-) - Jordan To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-sparc" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-sparc Thu Jan 7 05:55:13 1999 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id FAA19042 for freebsd-sparc-outgoing; Thu, 7 Jan 1999 05:55:13 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from bright.fx.genx.net (bright.fx.genx.net [206.64.4.154]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id FAA19036 for ; Thu, 7 Jan 1999 05:55:12 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from bright@hotjobs.com) Received: from localhost (bright@localhost) by bright.fx.genx.net (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id IAA57155; Thu, 7 Jan 1999 08:59:05 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from bright@hotjobs.com) X-Authentication-Warning: bright.fx.genx.net: bright owned process doing -bs Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1999 08:59:05 -0500 (EST) From: Alfred Perlstein X-Sender: bright@bright.fx.genx.net To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" cc: sparc@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: All this muttering about support from Sun. In-Reply-To: <613.915693995@zippy.cdrom.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Wed, 6 Jan 1999, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote: > Hey all, > > I don't subscribe to this mailing list (I get way too much already) > but I did catch some of the discussion on one of the mail2news sites > and can only say that I find some of what's been discussed so far to > be just a little alarming. I'm also not sure that my role in > "rejecting" SME's original offer was all that properly characterized, > and the two points are related, so let me see if I can't explain some > of the history here and attempt to put things in perspective: > > First off, I'd like it to be well understood by everyone that when you > approach any vendor for FreeBSD-related resources, no matter how big > or small, you're essentially now representing the project as far as > that vendor is concerned and they're just as likely to assume you're > project leadership or something given that most companies are > typically pretty confused about how the whole free software world is > led and who the key players are (I can't say I'm always all that sure > myself). The danger of misrepresenting or overselling the project is > a large reason why the original deal with SME was turned down. [very encouraging but keep it to yourselves stuff cut] Not to worry oh fearless leader, the only contact i will be making for while is with www.barnsandnoble.com to order some more books. I do need to get ahold of some "PC intern" sort of book though, although i doubt such a thing exists for sparc. (operfirmware calls and peripheral programming specs) I may be contacting sun for pointers to such referancfe books, but not in any FreeBSD affiliated way. I don't know how much of the archive of -sparc you read, but most of my messages were along the lines of "i'm not going to make a bing stink until we are MUCH farther along" I'm not doing this to embarass myself :) I hope this alleviates some of your concerns. -Alfred (X pkg manager real soon now) > - Jordan > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-sparc" in the body of the message > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-sparc" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-sparc Thu Jan 7 10:49:02 1999 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id KAA20470 for freebsd-sparc-outgoing; Thu, 7 Jan 1999 10:49:02 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from zippy.cdrom.com (zippy.cdrom.com [204.216.27.228]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id KAA20464 for ; Thu, 7 Jan 1999 10:49:01 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from jkh@zippy.cdrom.com) Received: from zippy.cdrom.com (localhost.cdrom.com [127.0.0.1]) by zippy.cdrom.com (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id KAA67036; Thu, 7 Jan 1999 10:48:23 -0800 (PST) To: Alfred Perlstein cc: sparc@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: All this muttering about support from Sun. In-reply-to: Your message of "Thu, 07 Jan 1999 08:59:05 EST." Date: Thu, 07 Jan 1999 10:48:22 -0800 Message-ID: <67032.915734902@zippy.cdrom.com> From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Sender: owner-freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org > I don't know how much of the archive of -sparc you read, but most of my > messages were along the lines of "i'm not going to make a bing stink until It actually wasn't your messages I was reacting to so much as some other guy wanting free or discounted equipment. In any case, I'm glad to hear you guys aren't overreaching yourselves. :-) - Jordan To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-sparc" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-sparc Thu Jan 7 13:49:26 1999 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id NAA13139 for freebsd-sparc-outgoing; Thu, 7 Jan 1999 13:49:26 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from xylan.com (postal.xylan.com [208.8.0.248]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id NAA13134 for ; Thu, 7 Jan 1999 13:49:24 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from wes@softweyr.com) Received: from mailhub.xylan.com by xylan.com (8.8.7/SMI-SVR4 (xylan-mgw 2.2 [OUT])) id NAA00202; Thu, 7 Jan 1999 13:47:37 -0800 (PST) Received: from utah.XYLAN.COM by mailhub.xylan.com (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4 (mailhub 2.1 [HUB])) id NAA22503; Thu, 7 Jan 1999 13:47:36 -0800 Received: from softweyr.com by utah.XYLAN.COM (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4 (xylan utah [SPOOL])) id OAA00799; Thu, 7 Jan 1999 14:47:35 -0700 Message-ID: <36952B77.80A0FF3F@softweyr.com> Date: Thu, 07 Jan 1999 14:47:35 -0700 From: Wes Peters Organization: Softweyr LLC X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 [en] (X11; U; FreeBSD 2.2.7-RELEASE i386) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" CC: Alfred Perlstein , sparc@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: All this muttering about support from Sun. References: <67032.915734902@zippy.cdrom.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org "Jordan K. Hubbard" wrote: > > > I don't know how much of the archive of -sparc you read, but most of my > > messages were along the lines of "i'm not going to make a bing stink until > > It actually wasn't your messages I was reacting to so much as some > other guy wanting free or discounted equipment. In any case, I'm glad > to hear you guys aren't overreaching yourselves. :-) Not to mention the fact that Sun has always been very friendly to developers, offering every developer large or small considerable discounts on Sun products and services. The don't give away their hardware, because the make it to make money on it. They do offer discounts of up to 40% on Sun hardware and soft- ware. If you want a discount, join the Catalyst program. If you want cheap Sun hardware, find somebody selling sun4c's and sun4m's. If you want free Sun hardware, go to school. ;^) -- Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket? Wes Peters +1.801.915.2061 Softweyr LLC wes@softweyr.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-sparc" in the body of the message