From owner-freebsd-alpha Tue Oct 13 10:37:21 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id KAA21407 for freebsd-alpha-outgoing; Tue, 13 Oct 1998 10:37:21 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from ascetic.portal.ca (ascetic.portal.ca [206.87.139.66]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id KAA21400 for ; Tue, 13 Oct 1998 10:37:19 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from cjs@portal.ca) Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by ascetic.portal.ca (8.8.8/8.8.5) with SMTP id KAA08988; Tue, 13 Oct 1998 10:36:42 -0700 (PDT) X-Authentication-Warning: ascetic.portal.ca: cjs owned process doing -bs Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 10:36:42 -0700 (PDT) From: Curt Sampson To: Terry Lambert cc: David Seifert , alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: PALcode In-Reply-To: <199810122008.NAA21219@usr07.primenet.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Mon, 12 Oct 1998, Terry Lambert wrote: > I'm not married to ARC; I'd be just as happy with any other PALcode > that spanned the entire product line and didn't cost extra to obtain. > Perhaps the VMS PAL code would be a good fit.... Terry, I really think you should grab a copy of the _Alpha AXP Architecture Reference Manual_ and look at the PALcode descriptions to see what it does. I wouldn't care to make a definitive comment one way or the other on the feasibility of something like this, but the extent to which the PALcode you use affects your OS internal structures and works is surprisingly large. PALcode covers not only how you do your VM structure, but your interrupt and process structures as well. (The actual context switch between two processes is performed by PALcode, not OS code, for example.) cjs -- Curt Sampson 604-257-9400 De gustibus, aut bene aut nihil. Any opinions expressed are mine and mine alone. The most widely ported operating system in the world: http://www.netbsd.org To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-alpha" in the body of the message