On Fri, 9 Mar 2001, Lee Reynolds wrote:

> What is the point of the 68k port of NetBSD?  Is it
> entirely academic?  The x86 port of NetBSD will run on
> everything from the slowest 386sx-16 to the fastest
> Athlon.  But because Apple dropped the 68k for the
> PowerPC, this port of NetBSD is limited to running on
> vintage computers.

I have two machines running the mac68k port of NetBSD right now, a
Centris 650 and a IIcx.  One serves as a router, and the other I'm
setting up as a network print server.

Running Mac OS, these computers would be less than useless to me, but
with NetBSD I'm able to get exceptional value from them at a very low
cost (practically free, since one of them I already had as a desktop Mac
OS box, the other I picked up for $20).  So far both have been stable
and reliable to a fault.

Without NetBSD/mac68k many more of these still very capable machines
would be junked, which would be a real waste.  For many computing tasks,
using the latest PPC hardware is overkill.


---
Phil Brodd