On Fri, 8 Mar 1996, Peter Seebach wrote:

> Yes, but when they weren't, how would anyone have meaningfully gotten netbsd
> running?  With or without HP's ANSI compiler, NetBSD would have needed to
> have binary support for HP-UX/PA-RISC binaries *before* it could have gotten
> far enough to be interesting.

This doesn't require gcc; it only requires a working COMPAT_HPUX.  The 
former is a toolchain issue, the latter is an OS issue.

> About all you can do without a reliable compiler in source form for your
> target chip is play around with kernel stuff.  You can't make a live
> system sanely.

Here's one possible scenario:

1) Get the kernel ported.
2) Make binary emulation work.
3) Drop the NetBSD kernel into an otherwise native system.
4) Boot NetBSD.

You can then use the native C compiler (and other development tools) to 
do further development, including building the NetBSD userland.

--scott

PS - I'm under the impression, perhaps wrongfully, that one or two current 
NetBSD ports started out in this manner.