On 14 Jan 2000, Darrin B. Jewell wrote:

> 
> I have the bootblocks as I originally received them from Rolf.
> I have placed a copy at 
> ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/arch/next68k/archaic/sys.arch.next.tar.gz
> It includes a binary, and is the oldest version I have.

Thanks!
I tried the binary, but it crashes (even for non-existing targets).

> I'm surprized that anything changed, but I should have bootblock
> sources of all versions of boot since I received them from Rolf.
> If the sources in public CVS aren't old enough, I have an archive
> of my working CVS repository from before the initial NetBSD import.

Well, I tried all obvious CVS-visible changes to the sd-related parts of
boot, but it's well possible that there's a problem with my cross-compile
setup, or it is something non-obvious to me ;-), or maybe it is an
interaction with libsa (which I have kept -current).

> Sometime in late '98, I did look at the turbo stuff a little.
> Although I could get some code booted and executing off of the SCSI
> disk, the kernel as loaded had large gaps of NULL bytes instead of
> code and it would crash as soon as it hit the missing instructions.  I
> put that project aside and haven't looked at turbo machines much
> since.  Perhaps an older version of the bootloader wouldn't have had
> this problem.

Possibly, but who am I to say that my turbo crashed because of the
different turbo hardware, and not because of these load problems? 

> As far as getting a kernel loaded on the Turbo machines, it is
> possible to link a Mach-O kernel using the native NeXT toolchain
> and use the NeXT bootblocks to load it.  This is what I was doing
> before Rolf's bootblocks conveniently solved that problem.

I ran into compatibility and header problems that way.
I'm considering a workaround the Linux/NeXT people have used: They prepend 
a minimal Mach-O header to their kernel to load it with the NeXT booter.

Did the netbsd kernel like the way the NeXT PROM and booter set up the
hardware?

Timm
-- 
Timm Wetzel     	<twetzel@gwdg.de>
Biomed. NMR GmbH        Tel +49 551 201-1091    FAX +49 551 201-1307
Am Fassberg 11, D-37077 Goettingen, Germany