NetBSD/pmax
NetBSD/pmax is the port of NetBSD to MIPS-based DECstations
and DECsystems.
NetBSD/pmax evolved from the 4.4BSD pmax port. 4.4bsd/pmax
was in large part the work of
Ralph Campbell
and
Rick Macklem (rick@snowhite.uoguelph.ca)
Adam Glass took the pmax portions of 4.4bsd-Lite and incorporated it
it into the NetBSD tree. Jonathan Stone and Ted Lemon have
contributed to it since then.
There was no pmax port in NetBSD 1.0. Since then,
many of the idiosyncracies of the 4.4bsd/pmax kernel have
been replaced with the standard NetBSD equivalents. The
NetBSD/pmax kernel sources are being integrated into
the NetBSD-current source tree.
Jonathan Stone has done about as much on NetBSD/pmax as anyone.
He sheperded the NetBSD/pmax 1.1 release, and is currently
the official portmaster.
Arne Juul has done sterling work, creating a NetBSD/pmax
configuration for GNU binutils and GCC. These are now the `official'
compiler toolchain used for NetBSD/pmax. Arne also built alpha-release
pmax binaries for NetBSD 1.1.
Ted Lemon
was the official port-master and maintainer of NetBSD/pmax until January
1996, though recently he hasn't had much time to spend on NetBSD.
Supported Hardware
Supported systems
NetBSD/pmax runs on the following models of Decstation:
- The Decstation 2100 and 3100, codenamed PMAX.
- r2000a CPU and r2010 FPU
- pm 1024x768 framebuffer, either mono or 8-bit color
- sii SCSI-I adaptor (wide SCSI-3-like connector, but other gender)
- dc7085 four-port serial chip (DZ-11 clone)
- baseboard AMD LANCE 10Mbit Ethernet interface
Two ports are reserved for a keyboard and mouse.
(An adaption-connector can make these ports usable
as RS-232 serial ports with no modem control.)
Two ports with 25-bin RS-232 connectors, with maximum speed
of 9600 baud. One port has partial modem control, the other
has none.
- The Decstation 5000/200, codenamed 3MAX.
- 25MHz r3000 CPU
- three 25MHZ turbochannel option slots
- baseboard AMD LANCE 10Mbit Ethernet interface
- baseboard 53c94 SCSI-2 interface
- dc7085 four-port serial chip (DZ-11 clone)
Two ports are reserved for a keyboard and mouse.
Two ports with 25-bin RS-232 connectors, with maximum speed
of 38400 baud. Both ports have modem control.
- The Decstation 5000/120, /125 and /133, codenamed 3MIN.
- 20, 25, or 33 MHz r3000 CPU. (The last two digits of the model number are the clock speed.)
- NCR 53c94 SCSI-2 adaptor
- three 12.5MHZ turbochannel option slots
- baseboard AMD LANCE 10Mbit Ethernet interface
- Two two-port Zilog SCC serial chips
(Two ports are reserved for a keyboard and mouse, two ports
have 25-pin connectors with modem control)
- The Decstation 5000/20 and /25, or Personal Decstation, codenamed MAXINE.
- NCR 53c94 SCSI-2 adaptor
- One two-port Zilog SCC serial chips
- baseboard AMD LANCE 10Mbit Ethernet interface
- Desktop Bus with lk-201 compatible keyboard and mouse.
- One two-port Zilog SCC serial chip
(two ports 25-pin connectors and modem control)
- two 12.5MHZ turbochannel option slots
- The Decstation 5000/240, codenamed 3MAXPLUS and Decsystem 5900.
- 40MHz r3400(?) CPU and integrated FPU
- baseboard AMD LANCE 10Mbit Ethernet interface
- NCR 53c94 SCSI-2 interface
- Two two-port Zilog SCC serial chips
(Two ports are reserved for a keyboard and mouse.)
- three 25MHZ turbochannel option slots
The 5000/1xx and 5000/2x models (3MIN and MAXINE) can be upgraded to a
5000/150 or 5000/50 by replacing the r3000 CPU daughterboard with a
50MHz r4000 CPU. The 5000/240 can be upgraded to a 5000/260 with a 60MHz
r4400 CPU daughterboard. NetBSD/pmax does not currently support any
r4000 or r4400 daughterboards, though at least one port to an (non-DECstation)
r4000 system is underway.
NetBSD/pmax has no support for the Decstation 5100 or the Decsystem 5400.
The 5100 (MIPSMATE) is supposedly similar enough to the 3100 that a port should be feasible. The 5400 (MIPSFAIR) is supposedly more similar to
the MAYFAIR Vaxes. If NetBSD/vax is ever ported to 3900-series
vaxes, a port to the 5400 should be trivial.
A port to the multiprocessor Decsystem 5800 is unlikely to ever happen.
Supported Devices
Hardware devices include the cfb, sfb, mfb, and pm TurboChannel
framebuffers; TurboChannel Ethernet cards; and all baseboard
devices of the supported models, with the exception of the MAXINE
floppy-disk controller, ISDN/sound chip, and 1MHz free-running clock.
The undocumented 25MHz bus-cycle counter is supported as a
high-resolution clock on the 3MAXPLUS. This time source is also
used by the in-kernel NTP support.
Installation Guide
NetBSD/pmax has an installation guide
under construction. While incomplete, it's better than nothing.
Projects
A list of things we'd like to see done for
NetBSD/pmax, or for NetBSD on other mips systems. It includes pointers to
resources, and to people who've expressed interest in some of the projects.
Frequently-Asked Questions
A FAQ page, with a selection of frequently-asked questions
and our answers, is available.
There are mailing lists associated with the pmax port.
Home Page
www@NetBSD.ORG
$NetBSD: index.html,v 1.8 1996/09/29 01:42:37 jonathan Exp $
Copyright (c) 1996
The NetBSD Foundation, Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.