Subject: New update to VAX port
To: None <port-vax@netbsd.org>
From: Anders Magnusson <ragge@psi.ludd.luth.se>
List: port-vax
Date: 10/08/1994 17:06:25
I just uploaded some updates to the VAX port files to sun-lamp. 
If you have an 11/750 with 4.3 Reno you can compile and boot
this without almost any problem.  


The VAX files will also be available at ftp.luth.se:/pub/NetBSD/vaxport
because it can be _very_ hard to reach sun-lamp sometimes. There are
also an complete NetBSD mirror in /pub/NetBSD.

Here is the readme file from arch/vax:




	$Id: README,v 1.3 1994/10/08 15:41:42 ragge Exp $

Some information and status of VAX port:

It runs single-user on 11/750 with not to much problem, but because
sendsig/sigreturn isn't written yet (the only important functions that
still is unwritten!) it isn't possible to use anything but /bin/sh.
It is possible to compile under NetBSD now, but there are an bug in
pmap that makes it reference deallocated pmaps sometimes.

Device drivers for UDA50 and DELUA are slightly changed from the 4.4BSD
release, and uda/ra routines work well. Deuna/delua routines can receive
packets, but not send packets. haven't found out why yet.

Config code isn't working at all, there are more important things to fix
first :) To glue together IO devices there are a file glue.c. Config.new
just creates some header files right now.

This is how it look like just now:

- Only works on 11/750 yet.
- Runs single-user, compiling programs no problem.
- Locore is taken away, startup code totally written in C :)
- It is totally compatible with 4.3 Reno binaries, here I use
  only 4.3Reno userland to be sure it works :)

Important things to fix:
- find bug in pmap which makes it crash sometimes.
- write sendsig/sigreturn.
- fix autoconfig routines so that kernel isn't statically configed.

Other things to do:
- Write boot blocks and /boot program.

As base code for our work we use 1.0b distribution. For development 
we use gas 1.35 with patches for bit instructions and gcc 2.5.8.
(newer gas 2.X is fixed for these instructions already).
The kernel can currently only be compiled without -O option, because
we lacks some volatile definitions in device code. It anyway takes
about 2 1/2 hours to recompile the whole kernel...

We are developing on 11/750's with Massbuss disks, because of the ease to share
disks between computers, but have root filesystem on an RA81 on an UDA50.
In the future we have the possibility to try it out on almost all VAX cpu
types, ka730, ka780, ka420, ka630, ka650, ka8200, ka8600 and ka8800. Phew :)

I have only included relevant files from old berkeley VAX distributions.
If you want to look at other files get them from nearest ftp site with
an 4.4BSD distribution, or from ftp.luth.se:/pub/unix/4_4bsd_l directory.

/ragge@ludd.luth.se