From owner-freebsd-hackers Tue Jan 2 12:23:07 1996 Return-Path: owner-hackers Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) id MAA07783 for hackers-outgoing; Tue, 2 Jan 1996 12:23:07 -0800 (PST) Received: from phaeton.artisoft.com (phaeton.Artisoft.COM [198.17.250.211]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) with SMTP id MAA07778 for ; Tue, 2 Jan 1996 12:23:05 -0800 (PST) Received: (from terry@localhost) by phaeton.artisoft.com (8.6.11/8.6.9) id NAA12473; Tue, 2 Jan 1996 13:14:28 -0700 From: Terry Lambert Message-Id: <199601022014.NAA12473@phaeton.artisoft.com> Subject: Re: Any plans for a port to DEC Alpha? To: grog@lemis.de Date: Tue, 2 Jan 1996 13:14:28 -0700 (MST) Cc: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: <199512291842.TAA22354@allegro.lemis.de> from "Greg Lehey" at Dec 29, 95 07:42:16 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk > I seem to recall that there was some discussion about a port to Alpha > a while back, but I can't find it now. A friend of mine just rang up > and offered me an Alpha machine if I were prepared to port some > software (of my choice) to it. There's just the possibility that > more than one machine is available, but I can't promise that at this > stage. So, my question: > > - what are the plans? > - would the availability of hardware make these plans more favourable > towards a port? Nekotech had loaned hardware to both Jeffrey Hsu and myself; they were PCI 33 MHz boards. We had NetBSD up an running (CGD's and Jeffrey's doing) and I was hacking FreeBSD pieces into it (VM and console and timer code, mostly) when the company had to recall the hardware to send out to other porters. The hardware is very expensive and offers very little benefit, IMO, but it did help identify a lot of places where interface generalization needs to happen for multiple platform support. For instance, the sconsole code sound support requires extensive timer support for sound, and really wants a timer registration mechanism that registers by ID and then adds sound support. Basically, blackboxing underlying hardware facilities in not-necessarily-uniform-sized-lumps. If you want to continue working a port, I can point you at the NetBSD source base. Unfortunately, my 2G Alpha formatted drive is pretty useless for sending you code unless I buy a machine myself (which I might do -- Nekotech still has not responded with pricing info, though). Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.