Hello,
While emptying a friend's house, we found a Mac Quadra (among a number of IBM PC clones), and I thought maybe it would run NetBSD. As the machine has not been plugged in for years it seems, my first thought was to vacuum/dust it out before applying power. After that, what would I look for to check if NetBSD will run? On a more somber note, when I searched the NetBSD web site I found links to the late community member Allen Brigg's MacBSD site. Alas, those links are defunct; could someone direct me to the right place to file change notes? There is a link to a working memorial site I found that should remain.
All Quadras should work. There are a few models that have LC040 CPUs, which are the m68040 without the built-in FPU, and older LC040s have a bug that prevents reliable FPU instruction trapping. If yours has one of those, perhaps it'd be a good excuse to test out a soft-float build of NetBSD :)
Most Quadra motherboards have tantalum capacitors, so they shouldn't need replacing, but some (I don't remember which) have electrolytics and you should definitely take a look at the motherboard to see which you have. Recapping is decently documented.
Power supplies seem to fare better, but yours may need recapping. Do you have a way to test the PSU outside of the computer? If recapping is problem (the larger capacitors aren't as easy to get), then another option is to use a standard power supply adapted to the Quadra. All of the Mac motherboards I've tested work fine with just +5 and +12 volts (Quadras 605, 610, 630, 650, LC II, LC III, but I haven't tested a Quadra 700 motherboard).
I have a mirror of Allen Brigg's site. I should update the links to point to the mirror. I'll try to set that up soon. Thanks for the reminder! Allen was very helpful and wonderfully encouraging when I was getting started :)
If you'd like to offer change notes, you can share them here. Welcome! John Klos