Subject: Re: R8k based Power Indigo2?
To: Rafal Boni <rafal.boni@eDial.com>
From: Jeff Smith <jeffs@geocast.com>
List: port-sgimips
Date: 08/11/2000 09:28:01
Rafal Boni wrote:
> 
> A friend-of-a-friend has what he claims to be an R8000-based Power Indigo2
> he's trying to get rid of... It seems like a nifty machine, and I'd like
> another toy, but I am most interested in having a nifty NetBSD machine
> than a R8k powered Irix box 8-), so the question is:

The difficultly factor is high.  It is basically and Indigo2 with
a R8000 -> SysAD torque converter (TCC) on it.  The R8K has an
odd tlb (as soren pointed out), does not support compat KSEG space
(so a 64 bit kernel is required), has very odd cache ops, a quirky
graphics fifo, etc.

It would be a great project to get up on NetBSD but maybe too hard.
I have some of the docs, and a fairly good idea how it works since I
did the IRIX port to the machine.

The path I would take is the same as we did at SGI.  First get Indigo2
up on NetBSD.  Then run a 64-bit kernel on Indigo2, then ask the
questions
you just did  :-)

This was a fairly low selling machine, so not a lot of other people
would probably have one.

jeffs