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Annotation of www/arc.html, Revision 1.12

1.1       deraadt     1: <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC  "-//IETF//DTD HTML Strict//EN">
                      2: <html>
                      3: <head>
                      4: <title>OpenBSD/arc</title>
                      5: <link rev=made href=mailto:www@openbsd.org>
                      6: <meta name="resource-type" content="document">
                      7: <meta name="description" content="the OpenBSD/arc page">
                      8: <meta name="keywords" content="openbsd,arc">
                      9: <meta name="distribution" content="global">
                     10: <meta name="copyright" content="This document copyright 1996 by OpenBSD, Inc.">
                     11: </head>
                     12:
                     13: <body>
                     14:
                     15: <h2>OpenBSD/arc</h2>
                     16:
                     17: <hr>
                     18: <h3><strong>History and Status:</strong></h3>
                     19:
                     20: <p>
                     21: The early history is not very clear. Apparently the first work was
                     22: done by CMU as part of their Mach project.  The initial hardware was
                     23: the DEC R2000/R3000-based Decstations.  This code was later used by
                     24: both the Sprite and BSD groups.  The 4.4BSD code, known as the `pmax'
                     25: port, was made freely available in mid '93.  It was merged into the
                     26: NetBSD tree by a variety of people, but has never been very stable,
                     27: reliable, or complete.  Compiler toolkit problems have plagued the
                     28: port because the standard a.out executable format is an imperfect
                     29: match to the MIPS architecture.
                     30: </p>
                     31:
                     32: <p>
1.9       niklas     33: Per Fogelstr&ouml;m became familiar with the code after porting it to a
1.1       deraadt    34: home-built IDT R3081 based board.  Subsequently he added R4400 support
                     35: when porting it to the MIPS R4400 Acer PICA board.  Willowglen
                     36: Singapore purchased a second PICA board for Theo de Raadt so that he
                     37: could improve the port for use as a development system for an internal
                     38: project.  Since then Theo and Per have had ethernet and a few other
                     39: small projects working.
                     40: </p>
                     41:
                     42: <p>
                     43: The Acer PICA is a dead platform.  Acer no longer makes the machine,
                     44: but even worse the machines are very rare.  But the Acer PICA was just
                     45: one of a whole family of similar machines built by other companies
                     46: like MIPS, Deskstation, NEC, Olivetti.  These machines were known as
                     47: ARC machines, built according to the "Advanced RISC Computing" specification.
                     48: </p>
                     49:
                     50: <p>
                     51: As a result, the code has been modified to make it more versatile, and
                     52: eventually it should support a larger whole range of ARC machines.
                     53: Hopefully a port will result that can run on the full range of MIPS
1.2       deraadt    54: processors: R3000, R4000, R4400, R46x0, R5000, and R10000.
1.1       deraadt    55: </p>
                     56:
                     57: <p>
1.12    ! deraadt    58: Currently the port supports the following:
        !            59: <ul>
        !            60: <li>Acer Pica: 150MHz R4400PC, ISA, with onboard ethernet, scsi, video,
        !            61:        and serial.
        !            62: <li>Deskstation Tyne: 133MHz R4600, ISA and VLB.
        !            63: <li>Deskstation rPC44: 100MHz R4400PC, EISA bus (full support coming soon)
        !            64: </ul>
1.11      deraadt    65: </p>
                     66:
                     67: <p>
1.1       deraadt    68: The people working the most on OpenBSD/arc currently consists of
1.9       niklas     69: Per Fogelstr&ouml;m, Theo de Raadt, and a few others. Of course, others are
1.1       deraadt    70: very welcome!
                     71: </p>
                     72:
                     73: <p>
                     74: Recent developments:
                     75: <ul>
                     76: <li>ELF shared libraries throughout
                     77: <li>ELF executables that page in, unlike NetBSD where they are
                     78:     read into memory.
                     79: <li>Almost native build. Very soon all the utilities needed will be in the
                     80:     source tree.
                     81: <li>nlist() function that understands a.out, ELF, or ecoff binaries.
                     82: <li>The kvm utilities work.
1.11      deraadt    83: <li>ISA bus support on the Pica.
                     84: <li>ISA and VLB support on the Tyne.
1.1       deraadt    85: </ul>
                     86: </p>
                     87:
                     88: <hr>
1.4       deraadt    89: <p>
1.8       deraadt    90: <a href=ftp.html>Snapshots are made available from time to time.</a>
1.1       deraadt    91:
                     92: <p>
                     93: Send mail to <a href=mailto:deraadt@theos.com>Theo de Raadt</a> and
1.9       niklas     94: <a href=mailto:pefo@openbsd.org>Per Fogelstr&ouml;m</a>.
1.1       deraadt    95: </p>
                     96:
                     97: <hr>
1.7       deraadt    98: <a href=plat.html><img src=back.gif border=0 alt=OpenBSD></a>
1.1       deraadt    99: <a href=mailto:www@openbsd.org>www@openbsd.org</a>
                    100: <br>
1.12    ! deraadt   101: <small>$OpenBSD: arc.html,v 1.11 1996/09/15 10:52:15 deraadt Exp $</small>
1.1       deraadt   102:
                    103: </body>
                    104: </html>