> I wish installing Minix 1.3 had been that easy... 8-)  (Or even my
> first shot at NetBSD.)  Great work guys, too bad I don't have much
> use for it now.  (Actually, if my un-backed-up hard drive EVER
> crashes, that will help a GREAT deal.)

Well, the pc532 will always have a special place in my heart..  It's
not a question of utility so much as it is the fact that the N32K was
a GREAT CPU, and if it hadn't been for such blundering on the part of
National we might have even had a chance to live in a day and age
where we LIKED the architecture we were using.  Instead, the least
deserving (IMO) architecture won and now I'm typing this at you from a
Pentium machine.

I keep my pc532 around as a reminder of what might have been, and as a
possible lesson for the future.  I figure for what I've put into it,
it's been time well-spent.  At least I can say that I saw a machine
based on the 32532 before it (the chip) finally died! :-)

Anyway, I have a success report:

NS32000 ROM Debugger
Version: Sun Nov 24 21:57:39 1991
Auto-boot enabled.
RAM free above 0x131c

Command (? for help): 

My pc532 lives!!  Yes! :-)

And with a boot ROM that's almost 4 years old..  Yow!  Nonetheless, I
think I have one of the very last generation ones since my command set
is:

Command (? for help): help 
Command arguments may be expressions.  Type HELP = for expression syntax.
For additional help, type HELP <command>.  Commands are:
backup         baud           boot           breakpoint     bspace
cpu            crc            disassemble    download       dump
edit           espace         fill           fpu            fspace
gpr            help           images         initialize     mmu
mode           move           partitions     raw            read
restore        rewind         run            search         set
show           step           trace          tread          twrite
write          wrmark         =              ?              

Looks like all the tape stuff and support for that little "images"
area we devised for Minix boot kernels is in there..  Yow, now this
takes me back! :-) I don't even think I *have* the forth interpreter
anymore, nor the original sources for the ROM.  Pity, that.  I was so
close to making the forth system stand-alone and ROMMable - I just
needed to relocate the dictionary and do the setup magic..

What's next?  I have a 240Mb drive stuck into this baby and just
waiting to go.  Can anyone here remember the sequence in the monitor
to send a format command to drive 0? :-) Also, I assume that the
DP8490 still remains the "disk controller" of choice?  That's how I
have mine hooked up, though I have an extra connector on this cable
that I can use to bridge both controllers and the drive.

					Jordan

P.S. Some of you will find this amusing, but this will also mark the
first time I've ever installed NetBSD..  I've never had the time to
install and evaluate the Intel version! :)