Folks,

I've started work on a DECsystem 5500 port (we have over a dozen of
these sitting in a rack :-) and still need to do a lot of work.  At
the moment, I have pretty much nothing done except detecting that it's
running on a 5500:

	>> boot -f tftp() -s
	Text size = 1883760
	Text start = 0x80030000
	+77488+428188 entry: 0x80030000
	No driver for console device, using prom for console I/O.
	Copyright (c) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999
	    The NetBSD Foundation, Inc.  All rights reserved.
	Copyright (c) 1982, 1986, 1989, 1991, 1993
	    The Regents of the University of California.  All rights reserved.

	NetBSD 1.4P (MONA) #365: Wed Dec  1 15:33:48 EST 1999
	    simonb@mona:/NetBSD/src/sys/arch/pmax/compile/MONA
	DECsystem 5500 (MIPSFAIR-2)
	total memory = 98304 KB
	avail memory = 88232 KB
	using 1254 buffers containing 5016 KB of memory
	mainbus0 (root)
	cpu0 at mainbus0
	cpu0: MIPS R3000 CPU Rev. 3.0 with MIPS R3010 FPC Rev. 3.0
	cpu0: 64KB Instruction, 64KB Data, direct mapped cache
	ibus0 at mainbus0
	ne at ibus0 addr 0x10008000 not configured
	asc at ibus0 addr 0x17100000 not configured
	<hang>

An Ultrix boot goes something like:

	ULTRIX V4.5 (Rev. 47) #1 (3.0/CPR_5500): Wed Feb 18 13:56:10 EST 1998
	  simonb@balrog:/share/arch/ultrix.mips/sys/MIPS/CPR_5500
	real mem = 100532224 
	avail mem = 63418368 
	using 7363 buffers containing 30158848 bytes of memory
	DECsystem 5500 - system rev 0
	cpu0 ( version 3.0, implementation 2 )
	fpu0 ( version 3.0, implementation 3 )
	Q22 bus
	kzq1 at uba0 csr 161300 vec 774
	HBA 'kzq' and DME 'kzqram' attached on Controller 1. 
	qe0 at uba0 csr 174440 vec 770
	qe0: DEC DELQA Ethernet Interface DEQNA-lock Mode, hardware address 08:00:2b:19:5d:35
	ne0 at ibus0 
	ne0: DEC SGEC Ethernet Interface, V4 hardware address: 08:00:2b:3c:3b:c5
	presto: NVRAM tested read/write ok
	presto: using 516096 bytes of NVRAM at 0x98002000
	presto: primary battery ok
	presto: secondary battery ok
	HBA 'asc' and DME 'ram94' attached on Controller 0.
	asc0 at ibus0
	rz0 at asc0 slave 0 (DEC     RZ57 (C) DEC 5000)

Now for some questions and comments from someone who is pretty much
Vax illiterate (I had a quick poke through the port-vax archives), and
hasn't really done any device driver attachment or new-port work and is
already thinking that they could have picked an easier first target:

 * Given that a 5500 is a "mipsfair II" would it be silly to assume that
   the closet vax is the "mayfair II" - either the 3300 or 3400 (using
   the KA640 cpus)?  I had thought it was closer to a 3900, but don't
   know where I got that notion.

 * The "asc" for turbochannel pmaxes seems to be the 53C94, whilst
   the vax uses the "ncr" driver for the 5380.  Would these be
   likely to remain as two seperate drivers under NetBSD and not use
   a ultrix-like merged "asc" driver?

 * The "ne" driver should be able to use the vax SGEC "ze" without
   hopefully too much work.

 * Where/what is the console device?!

 * I'll not think about QBUS support this early on :-)

Simon.