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From: thorpej@lestat.nas.nasa.gov (Jason R. Thorpe)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: BSD on 68030 ISI Optimum V/16?
Date: 5 Oct 1995 04:06:36 GMT
Organization: Numerical Aerodynamic Simulation Project - NASA Ames
Lines: 52
Message-ID: <44vlkc$42r@cnn.nas.nasa.gov>
References: <44skdj$f0c@ia.mks.com> <44to6c$4b1@news.cloud9.net>
NNTP-Posting-Host: lestat.nas.nasa.gov

In article <44to6c$4b1@news.cloud9.net>,
Thor Lancelot Simon <tls@cloud9.net> wrote:
>In article <44skdj$f0c@ia.mks.com>, Andy Toy <andy@mks.com> wrote:

>>Has anyone gotten any flavour of 4.4BSD running on an 68000-based
>>Integrated Solutions Inc. Optimum V/16?  I have both the 68020 and
>>68030 VME boards for this machine.  It's currently running ISI 4.3BSD
>>version 5.0 beta.  Both boards can be run simultaneously as a cluster,
>>but I would be happy to get 4.4BSD running using one of these boards.
>
>If the mvme68k port of NetBSD doesn't already run on it, it's probably not
>an enormous amount of work.

The mvme68k port definitely won't run on the ISI systems.  Having both
an MVME-147 and 4 ISI Optimums, I speak from experience :-).  The
68020 boards don't have Motorola MMUs, but rather something that ISI
apparently came up with, although, from the documentation I have on it,
it seems _kind of_ similar...

I'm quite interested in getting NetBSD running on my systems (all the
VME-68020 variety, one a V/16, the others V/8s...) since they're
currently running a _really_ ancient 4.2BSD port.

I started ... but NetBSD/hp300 is sucking up a lot of my time.  I have
stuff like preliminary boot code, that kind of thing.  There are
several snags with this box - for example, from all indication, the
PROMs (which report themselves as being the 4.2 boot) seem to load the
kernel directly from the filesystem.  I.e. there is not external boot
code.  It's probably reasonable to assume that the PROMs don't understand
modern 4.4 filesystems.  (Sun's boot code doesn't, why would these?)

Well, that's one of them anyway.

Thankfully, hardware available for these things seems pretty standard.  For
example, my systems have AMD LANCE and Intel ethernet controllers, and
these strange, odd SCSI controllers that only seem to understand 4
targets (they're connected to the MFM and ESDI disks via Adaptec bridges,
similar to the Emulex MD/21s).  The SCSI initiator is an NCR 53c85 with
a 16-bit Zilog 8200-series CPU sitting in front of it.  I can only assume
that the Zilog is acting as some sort of DMAC.  I should read the
documentation again...

The coolest thing about these boxes (besides their being Motorola :-) is
the optional VME serial boards ... I have 8 of these boards each with 4
Signetics 2681 DUARTs, and break-out boxes...that's a lot of serial
ports!  :-)

-- 
Jason R. Thorpe                                       thorpej@nas.nasa.gov
NASA Ames Research Center                               Home: 408.866.1912
NAS: M/S 258-6                                          Work: 415.604.0935
Moffett Field, CA 94035                                Pager: 415.428.6939