On Sun, Nov 12, 2006 at 08:38:13AM -0500, William Allen Simpson wrote:
> Manuel Bouyer wrote:
> >On Sun, Nov 12, 2006 at 02:19:06AM -0500, der Mouse wrote:
> >>>You seem to believe there are pure 4.2 stacks still out there, but
> >>>there aren't.
> >>I don't believe you have the evidence to back that up.  I don't believe
> >>anyone can.  There simply is no way to know what is still running in
> >>legacy applications.  There are PDP-11s still out there; heck, I think
> >>there are still PDP-8s out there.  I'd be astonished if there weren't
> >>4.2 stacks still in live use.
> >
> >I think it's quite possible. Especially if these have a special 
> >communication
> >board that can not be used in newer systems.
> >It's not uncommon to see very expensive equipements (e.g. in physic or 
> >chemic
> >labs) connected to a computer via a custom communication board, for
> >which a PCI version doesn't exists (and you wouldn't have the driver
> >anyway).
> >
> It seems to me that now others are using proof by assertion.

Actually I know peoples which have been in such situation (altough I don't
know if these boxes were running a brocken TCP stack). We periodically
get requests on the internal admin list for hardware parts for 15 to 20
year old systems, driving some lab equipement that can't be (easily)
remplaced.

Fortunably these old systems have eletronics that are not too hard
to repair for someone knowlegeable.


> My understanding of the goals of this project are to run it on as many
> platforms as possible.  So, the answer to the above possible issues are
> to port NetBSD to PDP-8 and PDP-11.

And write a driver for the proprietary, undocumented communication board,
and then make a compat_foo to run the software ?

> 
> If the goal is to support museum exhibits running their original OS, then

In my case it's not museum. It's used for day job by peoples that don't care
about computers. They just need to be able to use their equipement.

> 
> There were millions of those IPsec boxen sold, as opposed to mere hundreds
> or thousands of PDP- or Perkin-Elmer (my first port) or what-have-you....
> 
> I don't run 386bsd on my old 60 MHz Pentium anymore, either!

But I suspect you're not a chemist that has a spectrometer connected
to your 60 MHz Pentium.

-- 
Manuel Bouyer <bouyer@antioche.eu.org>
     NetBSD: 26 ans d'experience feront toujours la difference
--