*BSD News Article 31511


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From: ragge@ludd.luth.se (Anders Magnusson)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions
Subject: Re: FreeBSD / NetBSD for VAX ?
Message-ID: <ragge.771264599@father.ludd.luth.se>
Date: 10 Jun 94 16:09:45 GMT
References: <2sft2l$o7f@sun1.bham.ac.uk>
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In <2sft2l$o7f@sun1.bham.ac.uk> cca93013@sun1.bham.ac.uk (RFW Pigott) writes:

>Has anyone actually ported FreeBSD or NetBSD to the VAX architecture ?
>I have an 11/785 which is in need of exercise here, I am hoping to get
>some form of UNIX running on the sucker.
Yes, you are lucky, there _are_ people working on an VAX port og NetBSD. :)
We started working on an port for 750 in february, and has almost got
single user prompt. Most routines seems to work. We use RA/RM/RP disks
and device drivers works rather good.

>I think that I should be able to compile it, but I'm more than a little
>worried about device drivers... A VAX is a little out of the ordinary
>when compared to a PC and the stuff I have seen so far appears to be PC
>orientated.

>I am after some sources (or a binary !?) which have been massaged to
>work with a VAX-11/785. The devices that UNIX is going to have to talk
>to are a TU78 Tape drive and 5 SMD winchester drives which hang off a
>3rd party interface (I think it looks like a MASSBUS).
There should be no problem to get it work with massbuss disks, but
We don't have any massbuss tapes any more so we can't test them out.
You have to write these routines yourself :)

>I would assume that someone somewhere has probably seen sources for
>device drivers for this stuff somewhere anyway as it was fairly common
>kit once upon a time (PDP-11/70s had both MASSBUS & UNIBUS).
>The system is as follows :

Device drivers is no problem; DEC have lot of doc for their devices.
There is a mailing list for this VAX port at sun-lamp, which you 
can join if you are interested in what is happening.
/ragge