Documentation has never been a strong point for NetBSD - though
	things are definitely improving.

	Generally (AFAIK) the common procedure is to find some way to boot
	a standalone program - if the machine has an OS with sane boot
	blocks, or can netboot. Setup another box running a supported
	version of NetBSD, then crosscompile an aforementioned standalone
	program which just outputs something - ideally via prom routines
	to a console, otherwise writing directly to videoram, or serial
	chip. 
	
	From there you can try enabling the MMU... Hmm - does the i860
	_have_ an MMU? Then actually booting a kernel to do the above,
	then a network driver to boot diskless, and finally conquering
	the entire world.

	Getting detailed documentation on the hardware ill make one
	hell of a difference....

	(I haven't done any of the above, so I'm no authority :)

	If there are any existing ports that have any (even vague)
	resemblance to your i860 machine (does it have anything
	like openboot?) you might want to contact their portmasters
	to see how they proceeded.

	Most of the recent NetBSD ports have been to machines whose
	processors were already supported in NetBSD (athough the rest of
	the machine may have been radically different, and poorly
	documented).

	So... dive in and contact 'tech-ports' with any problems you may
	hit...

	PS: What is your hardware like?	

		David/absolute

	 -=-  "That which does not kill us, makes us stranger"  -=-

On Thu, 23 Jul 1998, Joseph R. Rach wrote:

> Hello,
> 
>     I'm interested in porting NetBSD to run on Intel i860. I have the
>     book, "The Design and Implementation of the 4.4BSD Operating System"
>     by McKusick, Bostic, Karels, and Quarterman.
> 
>     Are there any other materials/reading that I can do to aid me?
> 
>     Any pointers/suggestions are greatly appreciated.
> 
>     Thanks in advance,
>     Joseph R. Rach
> 
> -- 
> A pattern is the abstraction from a concrete form which keeps recurring
> in specific non-arbitrary contexts.
>