sometimes i scare myself by knowing the answer to things like this,
since the medical research folks assure me that you only have some
fixed number of brain cells and that means i WILL NOT GET THESE BACK
for useful content.  anyway:

> > Isn't that CPU in VS3100? Does that mean it'll work on VS3100 soon?
> 
>   The names KA650 and KA630 refer to boards, not chipsets.  The KA630
> uses the 78032 processor, and I'm fairly sure that the KA650 uses the
> same chipset (called CVAX) that the vs3100 uses.

all true.  and the problem with VS3100 support isn't at the CPU chip level;
supporting the slight differences in page table format or cache invalidation
are easy.  all the supporting logic in a VS3100 is different -- counters,
timers, memory mapping, and so on.  all the device drivers are different --
"small disk" isn't RQDX3 or even close; "small tape" isn't TZQ50 or SCSI
but it's sort of close to both of them(!!); the list goes on.  the things
that make NetBSD hard to get working on a VS3100 are similar to the things
that keep it from running on a VAXstar ("microvax 2000" or "vaxstation 2000"):
same CPU, different surrounding electronics.

there is cause for hope in the case of the VS3100, since its disk controller
and ethernet and serial are the same chips used by the decstation 3100.  (they
were done at the same time and were forced by idiots in management to use the
same enclosure and many of the same substandard I/O devices.)  the counters
and timers and interrupts and memory mapping will be all cattywumpus, though,
and i think that's going to pretty much kill BSD on the VS3100 unless someone
with Ultrix internals know-how decides to pitch in.

>   Can anyone comment on the possibility of VAXBI support?  I know it's
> a complicated bus and I think it's not too well documented.  However,
> BI machines are becoming *very* cheap on the used market, and some of
> them are really sweet machines, IMHO.

chris torek did VAXBI support for BSD4.3 back when he was in maryland.  as
far as i know the support got back to berkeley and appeared in 4.3-reno.
just getting the VAXBI and DEBNT and KDB50 drivers out of 4.3-reno would
not torque any code lawyers since it was all original work.  the upper layer
interfaces are all different, of course, but these drivers would give you
a good starting point (better than the one chris had.)

note that not all BI machines are equal.  just as the UBA mapping registers
were different among the 730/750/78x/86x0, so are the BI mapping registers
among the various 8xxx machines.  you will find that the 85xx/87xx/88xx are
very similar to each other but very different from the 82xx/83xx (which used
the BI as a system bus with the usual PMI between CPU and memory.)

(can i have those brain cells back now?)