On 2003-11-17 ab2@gno.de wrote:

> It is not really clear for me what is currently working in NetBSD
> for the Uniden PC100 8 Mb type of CE device.
> ___________________________________________________________________________
> 	Uniden Models
>
> Sold in   Model         CPU                    Video             RAM Ports Boot PCIC Keymap Xserver
>
> World    PC100  75MHz PR31700 320x240 Mono 4/8      ?       ?       ?        ?    PsPC       ?
> ___________________________________________________________________________
>
> Due to this chart it probaly lacks a lot of support.
>
> I wanted to give it a try.
>
> But when I tried to start the pbsdboot.exe I
> get the mentioned 'cannot allocate heap'
> from the Instalation section ( .. see below).

  You will certainly not be able to run sysinst.  My Clio currently shows
just under 8MB in use (doing almost nothing).  I don't know if it actually
will boot with that, though.  This is a custom kernel, but could be
configured with fewer options (it is currently a little under 3MB).  I
also use a custom rc that does almost nothing and doesn't load anything
that sticks around.

  I don't know if the CPU is supported.  It seems to be related to the
Toshiba processors, which unfortunately don't work in 1.6.2 (IIRC it
looked like it could be a boot loading issue; perhaps an older pbsdboot
would work).  They did work earlier, so at least 1.5.X with older pbsdboot
might work on this CPU.

> On the other hand I read:
>
> "Note:
>  You need 16 MB or larger RAM on a machine for self installation. "
>

> If Installation is currently only possible for >8MB devices how could I possibly
> achieve it to get a system running with this device?

  You can set up the system manually on another mbr port (such as i386).
You would at least need to compile a very minimal kernel.  Even then I
suspect you would be able to run almost nothing.  Also, I don't think
there is a soft keyboard available unless you speak Japaneese.  Most
current use of NetBSD/hpcmips is on HPC/Pro form factor machines that have
an integrated keyboard and use NEC Vr CPUs.

  There was a Linux-based PDA with 8MB of memory (also based on Vr chips),
but they designed a special binary format for compact binaries (before
going out of business).  They also used XIP (execute in place) to run the
binaries from flash ROM, which NetBSD does not support (unless it was
added recently).

  What do you want to do with the system?

> My Machine has ony 7.8xx MB for programs available and
> after a fresh reset allready 1.6 MB are used by standard
> CE software.
>
> So what are probaly my options?
>
> Could I make it work with a 'standard' port/hpcmips distribution?
>
> Has somebody done it before with this type of device?
> What is with the Modem, Infrared, serial port, display?

  Serial port and display should work if it boots.  The modem is most
likely a winmodem and would not work.  I don't know about IR.

> Is it really so hard to make them work?

  NetBSD/hpcmips seems to use more memory than NetBSD/i386.  Some of this
is due to larger binary size, but it is possible that other issues exist
too.  It should in theory be possible to get NetBSD to do something with
this machine, but it might require deep kernel wizzardry to do so.

> I thought CE devices are pretty standard and nearly
> quite the same so software should be realtively easily made
> working on these type of devices once a 'start' is made
> (as it seems with this port)?

  This might be true for CE software, but NetBSD needs to know more
detailed hardware info.  There are many different hardware combinations
that can be used, and the NEC and Toshiba CPUs are quite different.
Almost all of the combinations are generally supported, but might not have
been used recently (or at all).  The main problem with this machine is
most likely the low memory.

  If you still want to try to get it working, you can try booting the
1.5.3 netbsd.TX3912.gz kernel (-a boot option might be a good idea to
prevent it from looking for a root fs that doesn't exist). This can be
found under:
ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-1.5.3/hpcmips/binary/kernel/

  If that works, you can set up the CF card manually (it should even be
possible to run from a DOS partition, although fsck_msdos doesn't seem
to work well on my i386 machine at least and /dev takes forever to
populate on mfs due to MIPS exec slowness).

  You should be aware that it is possible to damage the machine if the
configuration is not correct, especially if a used GPIO port gets set the
wrong direction.  I don't remember if NetBSD will change the port
direction or not.  I think this is less likely to be a problem on the TX
style chips since almost everything is integrated, although since it is a
different chip there could be issues there as well.  At least you should
make sure that the correct system id is used, not select a similar system
from the list.  It is still possible that something could go wrong then,
but most likely it would work or not without permanant damage.  I don't
remember hearing of NetBSD/hpcmips killing a machine, but it could happen.
Let me know if you still want to try it and there is no selection in the
pbsdboot menu, I can find the system id for you.


Matthew Orgass
darkstar@city-net.com