Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!ncar!oddjob!mimsy!chris
From: chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Press Release: Intel announces 80960 architecture
Message-ID: <11046@mimsy.UUCP>
Date: 13 Apr 88 05:28:32 GMT
References: <3358@omepd> <10320@steinmetz.ge.com> <8755@reed.UUCP> <10382@steinmetz.ge.com>
Followup-To: somewhere else
Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742
Lines: 26
Keywords: 80960, RISC, embedded control

In article <10382@steinmetz.ge.com> davidsen@steinmetz.ge.com
(William E. Davidsen Jr) writes:
>A UNIX port is getting easier to do all the time, since there are more
>good people around. If only a PCC style compiler were needed I suspect
>that it could be done in a minimal way (kernel + C) in a year.

I am not sure quite what you mean here, but a half-decent 4.3BSD should
not take even a year.  Just code up the machine dependent part of the
kernel---mostly locore.s and drivers---patch up a PCC back end
(stealing liberally from the Tahoe back end, since the Tahoe
architecture is closer to the 80960 than is the Vax), write a weak
`optimiser' that does trivial reordering, and compile it and go.
4.3BSD's portability has become noticeably better since 4.3BSD was
ported to the CCI Power 6/32; the same source tree compiles on okeeffe
(a CCI Power 6/32 aka Harris HCX-7) and vangogh (a Vax 8650) with
literally no changes.  (The machine dependent pieces are put in
subdirectories; make cleverly predefines ${MACHINE} as either `vax' or
`tahoe', so one writes, e.g., `cd pcc.${MACHINE}; make'.)

I think it would be neat if someone (mt Xinu might be a good candidate;
Berkeley folks spend too much time breaking, er, augmenting the kernel
in other ways to be able to do this) ported 4.3-tahoe to every architecture
in sight, just to create a truly portable base system.  But this is
drifting rather far afield of the original subject (and newsgroup!).
-- 
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7163)
Domain:	chris@mimsy.umd.edu	Path:	uunet!mimsy!chris