On Wed, 2 Oct 1996, Jonathan Stone wrote:

> 
> Catching up with email after 1.2...
> In message <199609130027.KAA18646@balrog.supp.cpr.itg.telecom.com.au>
> Simon Burge writes:
> >On Thu, 12 Sep 1996 15:26:01 -0700  Erik Bertelsen wrote:
> >
> >> However, the experience i have from the V-kernel
> >> at Stanford suggests that newer PROMS for ioctl-asic machines
> >> (e.g.,  the ones shipped as an FCO to installed machines to make them
> >> able to boot from CD-ROM) simply do not boot well from TFTP at all.
> >> Only MOP booting really works reliably  on these PROMS.  (Even the
> >> small V secondary bootloader  failed to boot via TFTP.)
> >
> >I've haven't got PROM revision numbers handy, but I have *ONE* 5000/240
> >that boots via TFTP.  We probably have another 20 or so /240's around
> >here that have a slightly older revision PROM that don't work.  Anyone
> >know how to upgrade the PROMS?  At first glance, I couldn't even find
> >the damn things...
> >
> >> If that is the case for your machine,  I think porting  the
> >> NetBSD/vax MOP server to Decstations (adding ELF binary support
> >> to it) may be necessary.

NetBSD/vax MOP server isn't a correct description. NetBSD/vax cant run my 
MOP server yet. The drivers don't support BPF yet. But other ports of 
OpenBSD, NetBSD, FreeBSD and BSD/OS that supports BPF works.

> >
> >I've got an old mop server (somewhere) that I was going to do this
> >with, but at the moment, it's firmly in the "much later on" basket.
> >
> 
> Maybe Mats O. Jansson (sp?)'s MOP server could be extended to  support
> ECOFF as well as a.out?   Who's working on that for vaxes?
>

It shouldn't be hard. I think It took me a couple of hours to get the a.out
support working. The worst part was to be able to support both big- and 
small-endian a.out in the same code. If I remember correctly ELF images 
start with ELF, so it shouldn't be hard to implement. I don't know anything
about ECOFF, but I dont think it could be that hard to fix it. I think I 
could fixit if I have 1) a kernel to look at. 2) Someone that knows about
ECOFF that could answer possible questions.
 
> I dont see a lot of gain in the *BSD community supporting multiple
> MOP servers....
> 

-moj

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mats O Jansson, CelsiusTech Systems, Jaerfaella, Sweden
email: maja@celsiustech.se (or moj@stacken.kth.se)