In July, Wayne Knowles <wdk@netbsd.org>, a researcher in New Zealand,
successfully ported NetBSD to his RC3230 made by MIPS Computer Systems,
Inc.  The RC3230 was a R3000A desktop box commonly called R3000 Magnum;
a popular workstation that was re-badged by companies such as Bull and
Olivetti.  The port name was decided to be NetBSD/mipsco so other computers
by MIPS Computer Systems could be included in it.

In early August, NetBSD/mipsco was merged into the main NetBSD tree, and
has seen many improvements since.  Changes were committed to allow the
kernel to read either a BSD disklabel created under NetBSD/sparc or a
MIPS volume header created under Risc OS.  This change allowed the stand
alone shell to directly load a NetBSD kernel and mount a filesystem -
NetBSD/mipsco became self-sufficient.

Currently the Magnum 3000, Mips 3230 Server, and Bull DPX/Prostation M-20
are supported.  Support for other models is planned for the future.

The following persons helped greatly in the process of creating this port:

	Wayne Knowles: port maintainer and main developer
	Toru Nishimura: developer
	Francis Bogsanyi and Chris Collins: provided feedback from the
	 pre-alpha snapshot

If you're interested in following or becoming a part of the development
efforts, there's a port-mipsco mailing list.  This list can be subscribed
to either on the NetBSD web site[1] or by sending a mail with the body of
"subscribe port-mipsco" to majordomo@netbsd.org.  More information is also
available on the NetBSD/mipsco port page[2]. 

	1  http://www.netbsd.org/MailingLists/#port-mipsco
	2. http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/mipsco/

-- 
Reed <dent@pgh.nauticom.net>