GNU tools on a news3250 success

[Raymond Moyers <rmoyers%nop.org@localhost>]

 After some prodding  i have managed to get the gcc 2723 compiler
 up and running on my old news box

 There where some that showed no small amount of interest if
 i was to get a working tool chain, and ive managed to get
 a pretty clean running compiler and gnu base kit up and
 working  bash, fileutils, textutils

 i had to reconstruct all the old gcc versions by reversing
 diffs untill i found one with the mips-sony-sysvr4 target
 working, that turned out to be the gcc 255 compiler circa
 1993, and then used that one to walk back up thru the
 compiler versions.

 Lots of bother, but was the only way to get here from there.

 all the others the mips c compiler was too limited and buggy
 to get them to build with my limited C skills.

 These tools are running on the ecoff based 5.0.1 UNIXVr4

 I understand that there is a 5.0.2 system that is elf, does
 anyone have a HD image of that system ?

 While i cannot seem to make a disk that will boot using
 the provided newboot method,,   cat - ing a raw copy
 from disk to file and file to disk works, you can then
 make a new disktab entry to make use of the added space
 on the bigger disk

 Ive got a 1g scsi running  that was given birth via

  cat  OriginalSony250m.hd.img > /dev/sdb

 Creating a bootable disk ready for a new disktab is
 as simple as that.

 In any case, perhaps this small victory might help
 those needing a compiler better than the sucky
 mips cc, might help in the NetBSD porting effort

 And perhaps there are some that would like to have
 more modern userspace stuff running on the machine
 that the old mips cc will not build.

 If there is someone with a 32XX series mips r3000 that has
 a hd with a working 5.0.2 that can be raw spooled to a file
 with cat, perhaps i can talk you into spooling it off for
 me ?

 Building stuff on this old box varies from trivial to a hassle
 as stuff isnt in the expected libraries, and headder contents
 look to be shuffled around, but usually, adding an extra
 include here n there and addiing the misnamed lib
 to fix the linking step is usually all that is required.

 If anyone was unaware that you could spool off the original
 system image, and spool it back to any old scsi disk
 perhaps the methods i have perfected to import
 the OS to a nice huge modern scsi might be of interest

sony:/usr/local# df
Filesystem           1k-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/root                16023      9328      5092  65% /
/dev/sd003               64447      3333     54669   6% /var
/dev/sd004               95655       734     85355   1% /home
/dev/sd007              936491    433560    409281  51% /usr
fubar:/data4/sonynfs   1042937    506955    483371  51% /mnt/fubar
sony:/usr/local#

 While the raw spool method dont allow you to resize root
 you can remove the space crunch like i did above
 the original disk was 250m, the 1g disk is far bettah

 I dont know why newfs/newboot, the normal proceedure
 wont make a bootable disk    boot0 boot00 seem to work
 ok as they do load the kernel, but the kernel panics
 right after load..
 
 so far, only spooled raw images have been able to boot.

 If any of my work can be of use, I offer what i have, perhaps
 the tool chain or volume creation methods could make
 your old mips machine useable again.

 I offer what i have

 Cheers !
 Raymond



> I have a NWS-3250, complete with dead lithim battery, that still runs
>  # uname -a
> sony sony 4.0 5.0.1 NEWS3200 mips.r3000
> 
>  Ive been attempting in vain to get the gnu tools a foothold on it
> 
>  i Have yet to chance netbsd-port-newsmips
> 
>  The system came with a lot of stuff on 3 dc600 tapes that i managed to
>  extract and install
> 
>  the make program sucks as does the c compiler that came with this sysVr4 
> abortion,
>  what i wouldnt give to have a decent shell like bash
> 
>  does anyone have a working gcc compiler and other such nicities running ?
> 
> .. as much as i can discern, port-newsmips is not yet self hosting, and must 
> be started
>  / launched from newsos
> 
>  I would be willing to do quite a bit of gruntwork on this beast, and share 
> my labor,
>  but to even try to move round on this beast with such a sucky set of tools 
> is,
>  well ill put it this way,  i mount the volumes on my linux box when i want 
> to edit
>  a file.
> 
>  About the machine, its a nice clean machine with the original carry bag, 
> scsi cable
>  n mouse, and a 10bt tranciver i pop on the back.
> 
>  The 3 dc600 tapes have the OS with the developer tools and demo programs like
>  decade cad and frameaker
> 
>  i also have some rather sparse manuals with very little info on the machine 
> other
>  than marketing type literature but there are some tidbits
>