Annotation of www/arc.html, Revision 1.15
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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">
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10: <meta name="copyright" content="This document copyright 1996 by OpenBSD, Inc.">
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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 Fogelström 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.
1.15 ! imp 48: No new ARC BIOS machines for MIPS will likely be manufactured.
! 49: Microsoft has announced that it will no longer support MIPS after NT 4.0.
! 50: OpenBSD/arc provides a good alterantive to NT, especially now that no more OS
! 51: updates for NT MIPS will happen.
1.1 deraadt 52: </p>
53:
54: <p>
55: As a result, the code has been modified to make it more versatile, and
56: eventually it should support a larger whole range of ARC machines.
57: Hopefully a port will result that can run on the full range of MIPS
1.2 deraadt 58: processors: R3000, R4000, R4400, R46x0, R5000, and R10000.
1.1 deraadt 59: </p>
60:
61: <p>
1.12 deraadt 62: Currently the port supports the following:
63: <ul>
64: <li>Acer Pica: 150MHz R4400PC, ISA, with onboard ethernet, scsi, video,
65: and serial.
66: <li>Deskstation Tyne: 133MHz R4600, ISA and VLB.
67: <li>Deskstation rPC44: 100MHz R4400PC, EISA bus (full support coming soon)
68: </ul>
1.11 deraadt 69: </p>
70:
71: <p>
1.1 deraadt 72: The people working the most on OpenBSD/arc currently consists of
1.13 deraadt 73: Per Fogelström, Theo de Raadt, Niklas Hallqvist, Warner Losh,
74: and a few others. Of course, others are very welcome!
1.1 deraadt 75: </p>
76:
77: <p>
78: Recent developments:
79: <ul>
80: <li>ELF shared libraries throughout
81: <li>ELF executables that page in, unlike NetBSD where they are
82: read into memory.
83: <li>Almost native build. Very soon all the utilities needed will be in the
84: source tree.
85: <li>nlist() function that understands a.out, ELF, or ecoff binaries.
86: <li>The kvm utilities work.
1.11 deraadt 87: <li>ISA bus support on the Pica.
88: <li>ISA and VLB support on the Tyne.
1.1 deraadt 89: </ul>
90: </p>
91:
1.14 deraadt 92: <p>
93: The ARC port is complete, including basically everything you can expect
94: on any OpenBSD port.
95: </p>
96:
1.1 deraadt 97: <hr>
1.4 deraadt 98: <p>
1.8 deraadt 99: <a href=ftp.html>Snapshots are made available from time to time.</a>
1.1 deraadt 100:
101: <p>
102: Send mail to <a href=mailto:deraadt@theos.com>Theo de Raadt</a> and
1.9 niklas 103: <a href=mailto:pefo@openbsd.org>Per Fogelström</a>.
1.1 deraadt 104: </p>
105:
106: <hr>
1.7 deraadt 107: <a href=plat.html><img src=back.gif border=0 alt=OpenBSD></a>
1.1 deraadt 108: <a href=mailto:www@openbsd.org>www@openbsd.org</a>
109: <br>
1.15 ! imp 110: <small>$OpenBSD: arc.html,v 1.14 1996/10/02 01:24:14 deraadt Exp $</small>
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