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From: bowen@cs.Buffalo.EDU (Devon E Bowen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.m88k
Subject: BSD/DG port
Message-ID: <1991Feb25.184746@cs.Buffalo.EDU>
Date: 25 Feb 91 23:47:46 GMT
Sender: news@acsu.Buffalo.EDU
Reply-To: bowen@cs.Buffalo.EDU (Devon E Bowen)
Organization: State University of New York at Buffalo/Comp Sci
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Originator: bowen@castor.cs.buffalo.edu


>	It's been a while since I bugged you about the 4.4BSD port
> to the DG's. So how goes it?

Since others may be interested, I'll post this to comp.sys.88k as
well...

Right now we have a lot of pieces to the puzzle but we still need
the glue to get them all together. What we have so far is all for the
AViiON 300 model but most will port to the other AViiON's trivially.
Our list of finished code is:

Drivers
	serial port driver
	parallel port driver
	ethernet driver
	SCSI driver (about 90% done)
	color console driver
	monochrome console driver

Locore
	start-up code
	interrupt handlers
	exception handlers (basics done)
	misc functions for speed

Misc
	clock functions
	autoconfiguration (basics done)

The biggest thing holding us back right now is the virtual memory.
BSD virtual memory code really expects your machine to have an MMU
that works like a VAX and the 88k doesn't by any stretch of the
imagination. As luck would have it, Berkeley is current adopting a
new VM based on the pmap modules of Mach. So the new plan is to work
with this new code and not release our port until 4.4 is released
(we were originally going to try to get a 4.3 port out). This should
make things a lot easier to deal with. BTW, if anyone knows of a
pmap module for the 88k that could be donated to our efforts, I'd
really appreciate hearing from you.

Anyway, once we get the VM going we should be able to start fitting
the pieces all together to build a running system. I don't have an
estimated completion date for that because I'm only now beginning
to look at the VM docs.

Administratively, we have a meeting with Data General later this
month to discuss further support of other AViiON models and peripherals
(currently we are only contracted to support the 300 and 5000 models
with standard peripherals). If anyone has any interest in other products
in the DG line running under BSD, I'd appreciate hearing from you even
if I've heard from you before. Thanks.

Anyway, that's the news and I'm outta here...

Devon


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