Re: Is pmax alive?

On 3 April 2016 at 07:27, Aaron J. Grier <agrier%poofygoof.com@localhost> wrote:

On Sat, Mar 05, 2016 at 07:32:51PM +0100, Felix Deichmann wrote:
> is pmax still alive and a working port (it is Tier II at least, but is
> that correct)? I cannot see real activity on the mailing list for
> months and years, and last posts even imply that the port could be
> broken on some machines or even altogether.

I gave away my 5000/240 to another NetBSD user years ago. 5000/200 went
to a local recycler along with some 3100s and 2100s. (some may have
been saved.)

I still have a 2100 I can't quite bring myself to get rid of. it takes
almost four days to build the 1.4.3A world (from 1.4.3A), and I haven't
quite found the necessary time to iron out the nuances to build 1.5.x
world yet.

running NetBSD-7 on a 2100 would be amusing, although I suspect not
practical. the introduction of ssh and crypto (in 1.5.x) seems to be
the nail in the coffin for some of these older systems.

In general I think pmax suffers from being the DEC NetBSD 'middle child'. Not as fast and (still just about :) useful as Alpha, not as interesting as VAX.

Having said that I have a couple of DECsystem 3100 and a DECstation 5000, and would love to have time to run them :)