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Diff for /www/alpha.html between version 1.40 and 1.41

version 1.40, 1998/06/19 15:05:58

version 1.41, 1999/06/17 19:41:39

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<p>

The alpha port was derived from the NetBSD/alpha port written by Chris

Demetriou <cgd@netbsd.org>. Unfortunately we cannot track it closely anymore

Demetriou <cgd@netbsd.org>. Unfortunately we cannot track it closely

as some copyright issues prevent us, check our <a href=policy.html>policy</a>

anymore as some copyright issues prevent us, check our

page for details. We are making our own efforts to keep this port modern,

<a href=policy.html>policy</a> page for details.

There have been a few efforts to keep this port modern,

which also includes many userland 64 bit problems which we have tracked down

and made fixes to. Many of the improvements mentioned below are not found

in NetBSD, but you should do your own research to decide which those are.

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tree, as well as updated with the changes Chris distributed in a separate

alpha toolchain package.

<p>

Today a lot more developers have alpha machines and we are

Today, more developers have alpha machines, and we are seeing interest in

seeing interest in a more active port. This fact has so far led to:

a more active port, but there still is very little active development going

on. This fact has so far led to:

<ul>

<li>A large-scale attack at fixing remaining 64-bit 'long' vs 'int'

problems in the entire userland source tree. Most of these

have been fixed, and new 64-bit problems are only rarely found.

<li>Adaptation of the if_ed ethernet driver.

<li>Parsing of i386 MBR & disklabels.

<li>DDB (kernel debugger) (disassembler, tracebacks, single stepping).

<li>IDE & ATAPI support.

<li>Easy installation via floppy.

<li>Fixed VGA workstation console driver. Added "stand-out" (highlight) to it too.

</ul>

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<li>ISA DMA (enables many common PC peripherals to be used)

<li>floppy support (requires ISA DMA).

<li>ELF object file format (gives shared libs)

<li>egcs fixes for the Ramdisk

</ul>

<p>

So far <a href="http://www.appli.se/niklas/">Niklas Hallqvist</a>

<a href=mailto:niklas@openbsd.org><niklas@openbsd.org></a> has been

keeping the port alive, but with the larger developer community coming up

trying to keep the port alive, but despite more people having alpha,

this will hopefully be a more distributively (and better) maintained port.

the port is barely alive and not too actively maintained.

</p>

<h3><font color=#0000e0><strong>Supported Hardware:</strong></font></h3>