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Date:      Mon, 2 Dec 1996 12:03:45 -0700 (MST)
From:      Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org>
To:        thorpej@nas.nasa.gov
Cc:        terry@lambert.org, jehamby@lightside.com, mark@quickweb.com, jkh@time.cdrom.com, chuckr@glue.umd.edu, hackers@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: FreeBSD/Alpha (was Re: COMDEX trip report)
Message-ID:  <199612021903.MAA10974@phaeton.artisoft.com>
In-Reply-To: <199612020047.QAA06327@lestat.nas.nasa.gov> from "Jason Thorpe" at Dec 1, 96 04:47:37 pm

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> 
> On Sun, 1 Dec 1996 17:03:21 -0700 (MST) 
>  Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org> wrote:
> 
>  > There is work on the PPC in the NetBSD and OpenBSD camps... and I'm not
>  > talking about the PowerMac hosted stuff that NetBSD recently checked
>  > into their tree, I'm talking real stuff (a Motorolla employee has been
>  > doing the work -- it's not checked in at all as far as I know).
> 
> We checked in PowerMac hosted stuff?  Err, no... NetBSD/powerpc runs
> on any 603 or 604 with OpenFirmware (and ELF boot code; simple matter
> of frobbing the boot image for machines that use a different format
> for the boot code).
> 
> Wolfgang Solfrank did the NetBSD/powerpc port, on a Firepower.

According to Carl S Shapiro <cshapiro@ic.sunysb.edu>, who, with
Thor Lancelot Simon, tried to obtain the JCC 4.4BSD-Lite port
CDROM [talking about Wolfgang's PPC code that was checked in]:

| 	It does not seem to have any native drivers, and relies on the 
| OpenFirmware to communciate with all of the machines devices.  It is not
| much of a port if you ask me, but it is a start.  I emailed Wolfgang
| Solfrank a while ago with repects to taking all of the work he has done 
| and applying it to a BeBox port.  He though it would take quite a bit of
| effort since there are no native drivers, and second, the BeBox can only
| boot OS's other than BeOS off of it's floppy (don't bounce buffer related
| issues come into play here?). 

So you're right and I'm right:

o	You're right: it is not the PowerMac stuff
o	I'm right: it makes ROM calls instead of using native code

I have been in communication with a Motorolla engineer who has been
working on a native port.  Unfortunately, it is by download to a
hosted card, so it does not have boot code.  On the other hand, it
has native drivers.

I have not pursued it vigorously because I don't have OpenFirmware
based hardware.  My loaner equipment is PPCBug based.

I have ordered the PPCBug docs *twice* from Arrow Electronics:

o	The first time, they billed me for FedEx (which I requested),
	but sent via UPS.  UPS had this habit of delivering to the
	closest company location to the UPS office instead of where it
	was addressed, so we ended up with pallates of manuals at
	the engineering location.  This was bogus, and UPS was told
	that all deliveries go to the warehouse location or my
	company would no longer do business with UPS.

	Because Arrow used the wrong shipper, even though I paid extra
	for FedEx, the materials were lost on our end when they closed
	the warehouse.  I blame Arrow for renigging on our agreement
	about which shipper to use, but since Arrow had a signature
	(not mine) they refused to replace the materials they caused to
	be lost.

o	The second time, they claimed to have shipped FedEx; however,
	FedEx denied knowledge of the package, and Arrow was unable to
	provide me with a tracking number to verify that FedEx even
	had the package.

I will buy more hardware from Arrow, as necessary; however, I will not
buy special order documentation from them ever again.

Unfortunately, they seem to be the only people who sell the documentation,
and Motorola will not sell to me directly (they refer me to their
nearest dealer: Arrow).

Currently, I'm at an impasse with the boot/console interface.

Not to be daunted, I used the AIX code to boot my code.  Other than
some recent VM changes (John's right: dangerous territory), I was
booting to a shell (unable to fork) prior to my accident.  I haven't
done much since, unfortunately.  Clearly, a release could not use
AIX code to boot... it belongs to IBM.

Well... more status than I started to write when I started to compose
this message.  8-(.


					Regards,
					Terry Lambert
					terry@lambert.org
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.



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