In article <200012201842.TAA37245@gummo.bbb.sub.org>,
Bertram Barth <bertram@gummo.bbb.sub.org> wrote:
>
>VAXstations don't support MTPR/MFPR for console-I/O, thus I'm rather sure
>that you'll never see any output from a 4.3 kernel on a VAXstation.  Thus
>you don't even see where /vmunix fails. Maybe when trying to access the
>console, maybe somewhere else.

<insert sound of the "D'OH!" heard 'round the world>

Of course!  That makes a lot of sense!

I always thought that the vmunix binary should have produced *some*
output before hanging, it never occurred to me that I was just not
seeing it.

But I have the source, and I have access to a 4.3bsd machine, so I can
compile a kernel that does console output the right way, using the 
NetBSD kernel source as reference.

>Away from that, busses, devices, handling
>of interrupts, I/O-registers and all that stuff are completely different.
>Without heavily modifying the sources you'll stay stuck.
>WRT VAXstation go for NetBSD, Ultrix or VMS. (ordered alphabetically)

Well, it seems like NetBSD is the place to start.  That brings me to my
other question, which is "can NetBSD/vax run 4.3 user-mode binaries?"
I've seen evidence in the kernel source that NetBSD is supposed to have
support for 4.3 syscalls.  But I haven't had any success at all with
running 4.3 binaries from the CSRG CD-ROM.

--Mirian