On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, J. MacPhail wrote:

> 2. Wscons feasibility.  From my troubles with wscons ("can't allocate
> memory"), and a browse through earlier postings, I guess that Wscons
> is not supported by any mac68k kernel.  True?

Yes and no.... "wscons" works fine, but with only one terminal.
Virtual terminals, as implemented in wscons, require features of VGA
hardware that are not present on Macs. The userland apps, "dt" and
"screen" are, of course, fine, but it wouldn't make any sense to
implement virtual terminals in the kernel without hardware support.

> 3, DT desirability.  The DT package appears at ftp.netbsd.org as a 1.5
> package, but no later.

Most of the m68k packages were built on an Amiga, by John Klos.
Unfortunately, "dt" uses mac68k-specific features, so it doesn't build
easily on the Amiga. (You'd have to set up a full cross compiler.) Are
there any NetBSD developers running 1.6.2/mac68k, who could build and
upload "dt"?

>  When I try to install the old package, I find
> it wants an old library.  Though the PB160 is unattractive for
> recompilation, I could dig the old library out of the 1.5 install
> sets.  Before doing that, I am asking whether DT has disappeared for
> any reason I should know.  Is there anything seriously wrong with it?
> Did everybody move to Screen instead?  Or what?

I made some minor changes to the package last November, to build on
current, and it worked fine. The biggest problem with it now, is that
it only works in 1-bit resolution, so I have to reboot to switch to
and from X. Plus, I confess my fingers have gotten used to "screen".

> 4. Screen availability.  There does not seem to be a 1.6.1 Screen
> package.  How come?

I'm sure the 1.6.1 packages were complete (with the exception of
oddballs like "dt") -- however, "screen" versions 4.0.1 and older
have a known vulnerability, and so the "screen" packages, for all
platforms, would have been deleted by the robot. Fortunately, both
"screen" and "dt" are fairly small packages with no dependencies,
so they should be relatively easy to build.

Frederick