alissa bader wrote:
> 
> Hi there, I've just gotten access to a bunch of very old 68k macs.  I'd
> really like to set up NetBSD on a few of them, the problem is I am not
> sure which machines would work the best. As I am not very much of a
> hardware person right now, I'd like to do as little fiddling with the
> actual machine as possible. 
> 
> I have access to a classic, a bunch of mac IIIs, some mac II's (si and
> ci), a quadra 700, and a centris 610.  I also think I might have access to
> an old SE.

The IIsi, IIci, Q700, and C610 should all work (with the caveat that the
C610 might have FPU emulation problems).  The Q700 and C610 should be
fastest, although the IIsi and IIci should be adequate.  I'm not sure what
a "mac III" is, unless you mean an Apple III, which is something else
entirely, and not a Macintosh.
 
> I checked out the list at 
> http://www.macbsd.com/macbsd/macbsd-docs/machine-status/, however, again
> as I am a total newbie at this, I'm not sure what is meant by "dirty ram,"
> etc etc.  

Dirty ROM, actually.  What that means is that the ROM's don't support
32-bit addressing (only 24-bit addressing).  There are ways to work around
this, tho, you just need a copy of Mode32.  Of course, none of the
machines you have listed which will work with NetBSD require Mode32 as all
of them have clean ROM's.

> So please let me know what might work the best, and forgive any silly
> questions I might have.

They're not silly, don't worry.  I hope the above helps some.

Later.

-- 
Colin Wood                                 cwood@ichips.intel.com
Component Design Engineer - PMD                 Intel Corporation
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I speak only on my own behalf, not for my employer.