On Wed, 17 Jul 1996 15:24:21 +0900 
 Onat Ahmet <onat@ohv.kuee.kyoto-u.ac.jp> wrote:

 > I have a HP 9000-340, with color monitor, 4M RAM, 5.25 MO,
 > 40MB HDD (yes, 40 MB!), floppy drive etc. (all drives are
 > connected with HPIB, but drives themselves are SCSI.)

The only thing that won't work is the floppy drive ... they talk Amigo 
rather than CS/80.  I'll be damned if I can find any documentation on 
Amigo :-)

 > My impression is that it is very slow, and does not
 > look as if it can be of much use. (But I love
 > old computers anyway!)

Yah, me too :-)

 > On the other hand; I see postings as above, saying that
 > HP300 is not a bad machine. 

I have 3 at home.  I rather like them.  A 340 (68030@16) isn't a blazing 
fast machine, and 4MB will make it even slower, but IMO it's still a 
usable system :-)

 > Is it that HP300 and my HP9000-340 are very different
 > machines, or just difference of opinion? Are there
 > any ways to load some useful OS onto it from BASIC?
 > NetBSD port300 seems to need HP-UX first. 

The "hp300" is a series of systems.  Check out:

	http://www.NetBSD.ORG/Ports/hp300/index.html

for a list of supported CPUs and other hardware.

You don't necessarily need HP-UX first, but you do need a way to install 
the system.  If you have other NetBSD systems around, booting over the 
network to install the miniroot is the easiest way to get going.  The 
NetBSD 1.1 installation notes describe the process.

Ciao.

 -- save the ancient forests - http://www.bayarea.net/~thorpej/forest/ -- 
Jason R. Thorpe                                       thorpej@nas.nasa.gov
NASA Ames Research Center                               Home: 408.866.1912
NAS: M/S 258-6                                          Work: 415.604.0935
Moffett Field, CA 94035                                Pager: 415.428.6939