From owner-freebsd-alpha  Tue Jun  2 18:18:17 1998
Return-Path: <owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG>
Received: (from majordom@localhost)
          by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id SAA22634
          for freebsd-alpha-outgoing; Tue, 2 Jun 1998 18:18:17 -0700 (PDT)
          (envelope-from owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG)
Received: (from hsu@localhost)
          by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id SAA22587
          for freebsd-alpha; Tue, 2 Jun 1998 18:18:14 -0700 (PDT)
          (envelope-from hsu)
Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 18:18:14 -0700 (PDT)
From: Jeffrey Hsu <hsu>
Message-Id: <199806030118.SAA22587@hub.freebsd.org>
To: freebsd-alpha
Subject: Re: future of slpha port 
Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG
Precedence: bulk
X-Loop: FreeBSD.org

> I think you might be referring to the work that Jeffrey Hsu and Terry
> Lambert did porting NetBSD/Alpha to the AXPpci33 (a.k.a. noname). This
> wasn't FreeBSD - they used the NetBSD/Alpha port done by Chris Demetriou.
> The noname work was contributed by Jeffrey back to NetBSD and at least
> partly re-written by Chris AFAIK. 

Yes, that was something I did on my own several years ago.  I tried
to get loaner equipment from the various Alpha and Alpha clone
manufacturers for hardware to port to.  Unfortunately, I got very
little support on this from the outside hardware vendors and inside
FreeBSD.  I think the time wasn't right for FreeBSD to accept
another architecture port.  In any case, I got two loaner units,
worked on the kernel port for two months, first getting NetBSD
ported to that particular bus and platform.  Among other things,
an important result of that work was a crucial fix to the NetBSD/Alpha
vm system which at that time wasn't setting the dirty bit on pages
that had been swapped out, completely breaking virtual memory on
all platforms, not just the one I was working on.  I also hauled
my units to a Linux Daze forum at DECUS in San Francisco, a room
full of vendors (including DEC which was paying several engineers
fulltime to work on the Linux alpha port) demoing Linux running on
the Alpha platform.  I was a lone voice in a room of Linux nuts,
but I perserved until the manufacturer that lent me the two units
requested the units back, at which time I had to stop working on
the port.  A darn shame too, as I had made great progress and was about
to integrate the NetBSD pieces into FreeBSD.  It just about broke
my heart when this project ended.

						Jeffrey

To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-alpha" in the body of the message