On Wed, 27 Dec 2000, NetBSD Bob wrote:

> > Just a question to be asked out of idle curiosity... Is anyone on this
> > list running NetBSD (any version of it) on one of the earlier VAX systems?
>
> I am curious too.... especially on 750 or 730 class machines.
> I have been keeping an eye out for some of that hardware, just for
> the fun of it......(:+\\...

Actually, I forgot that the 11/730 isn't a supported system.  Someone
on this list picked one up a few years ago, I think they lived in the
St. Louis area.  I found a guy in San Diego who had an 11/730, but I
never made it down there with a U-Haul to collect it.

> > Given the recent discussion threads on the 1.5 release performing less
> > than wonderfully on slower hardware like the 0.9 MIPS MicroVAX-II, I'm
> > curious about it's usability on the ever slower VAX 11/750 and 11/730.
>
> If it takes the MVII over 6 minutes to load, I would be very curious
> as to how long it took a 1/3 as fast machine to load.  For the sake
> of discussion, is there any thought towards tailoring a special
> VAX NetBSD suite to just the old slow machines because of their
> limitations, that might be optimized for speed or minimized for
> critical mass or footprint, etc.?  I sense the bulk or waistline
> of the current builds are approaching or are at that point of possible
> limitiation.

I think the best solution would be to find a way to find some way to
better support slow systems using the new 1.5 /etc/rc implementation.
I've not looked at the changes for 1.5 yet, but I'm sure there's a way to
work around the startup performance problems.

Putting all the startup code in a single script would definitely help.
That way the individual #!/bin/sh lines wouldn't cause the overhead of a
new shell to be loaded up every time.  Someone mentioned a means, or at
least an idea, of generating a single startup script from the new
collection of scripts.  This would be a start.

> Just thinking out loud, again.....
>
> > I do have a nice 4Meg MicroVAX-I which clocks in at ~0.3 MIPS, but NetBSD
> > isn't ported to it... yet.  A resource limited system like this would
> > surely test the bounds of NetBSD running with restricted resources.
>
> Somewhere I remember running across an Ultrix set for that critter,
> but I don't remember exactly where.  My options guide from 1986(?)
> lists an Ultrix 32 for that critter, that was floppy or maybe floppy
> and/or TK50 based.  It might be used for comparisons, or maybe a
> starting port, if it could be located.

Yeah, the MicroVAX-I ran a version of Ultrix.  I'd love to have a copy of
it for the system, but I don't think I'll be able to get my hands on one.
Barring that, I'd actually be interested in getting a copy of the
bootblocks and the bootloader for Ultrix.

-brian.
--- Brian Chase | bdc@world.std.com | http://world.std.com/~bdc/ -----