Subject: Re: Is gcc slow? Or is our gcc slow?
To: David Gilbert <dgilbert@jaywon.pci.on.ca>
From: Ken Hornstein <kenh@cmf.nrl.navy.mil>
List: current-users
Date: 04/10/1996 10:13:00
>	This all reminded me that I wanted to ask if anyone thought it
>would be possible to port NetBSD to a 68010-based architecture.  I
>have access to a few copies of a 'Sylogics' computer.  They have a
>68010, 4 serial ports, some form of early array processor (some sort
>of DSP?), 16 meg of memory, an ethernet board and an ST-506 disk
>controller.

It's been a few years since I was a real 68k-head, so someone out there
please correct me if I'm wrong.

I believe the real reason that it's very difficult (if not impossible)
to run a Unix on a straight 68k machine is that the 68000 has no way to
re-run a bus cycle - this makes it very difficult to implement even your
own MMU.  I believe that starting with the 68010, you can re-run a bus cycle,
thus giving you the ability to implement some sort of MMU.

As someone else pointed out, you're going to need to understand this machine's
MMU before you can do the port.

--Ken