From owner-freebsd-hardware Mon Dec 10 21:53:12 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Received: from valiant.cnchost.com (valiant.concentric.net [207.155.252.9]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9AEDD37B417 for ; Mon, 10 Dec 2001 21:53:09 -0800 (PST) Received: from bitblocks.com (adsl-209-204-185-216.sonic.net [209.204.185.216]) by valiant.cnchost.com id AAA08679; Tue, 11 Dec 2001 00:52:56 -0500 (EST) [ConcentricHost SMTP Relay 1.14] Message-ID: <200112110552.AAA08679@valiant.cnchost.com> To: nate@yogotech.com (Nate Williams) Cc: 9ustavo 9onzalez 9iron , freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: i286 In-reply-to: Your message of "Mon, 10 Dec 2001 15:02:26 MST." <15381.12530.404008.733531@caddis.yogotech.com> Date: Mon, 10 Dec 2001 21:52:56 -0800 From: Bakul Shah Sender: owner-freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org > > Exist some kind of FreeBSD's version for intel 286 processor? > > Never in a million years. There exists no 'real' unix for the 286, > since the 286 hardware is incapable of protecting processes well enough > to be safe. Not that anyone cares any more but... i286 provides good enough protection -- you can have each prcoess in its own protected address space without any external h/w support (like we had to do for Moto 68000 based machines). What it didn't provide was support for paging. A company called Microport released a "real" unix for 286 in, I think, 1985. Another company called Bell Technologies used to sell PC/ATs bundled with Microport's Unix and their own drivers for various I/O devices until Intel bought them out. Microport is still around but don't know if they sell Unix on PC/ATs anymore! To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hardware" in the body of the message