[BACK]Return to arc.html CVS log [TXT][DIR] Up to [local] / www

Annotation of www/arc.html, Revision 1.19

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.
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.
1.16      imp        67: <li>Deskstation rPC44: 100MHz R4400PC, EISA bus.
1.12      deraadt    68: </ul>
1.11      deraadt    69: </p>
1.17      deraadt    70: <p>
                     71: The following ports are also being worked on:
                     72: <ul>
                     73: <li>NKK Aquarious R4700 PCI machine.
                     74: <li>A Willowglen R3081 ARC-lookalike board used as an embedded system.
                     75: </ul>
                     76: </p>
1.11      deraadt    77:
                     78: <p>
1.1       deraadt    79: The people working the most on OpenBSD/arc currently consists of
1.13      deraadt    80: Per Fogelstr&ouml;m, Theo de Raadt, Niklas Hallqvist, Warner Losh,
                     81: and a few others. Of course, others are very welcome!
1.1       deraadt    82: </p>
                     83:
                     84: <p>
                     85: Recent developments:
                     86: <ul>
                     87: <li>ELF shared libraries throughout
                     88: <li>ELF executables that page in, unlike NetBSD where they are
                     89:     read into memory.
                     90: <li>nlist() function that understands a.out, ELF, or ecoff binaries.
                     91: <li>The kvm utilities work.
1.11      deraadt    92: <li>ISA bus support on the Pica.
                     93: <li>ISA and VLB support on the Tyne.
1.18      imp        94: <li>ISA bus support on the rPC44.
                     95: <li>gdb works.
1.19    ! imp        96: <li>Completely native build.
1.1       deraadt    97: </ul>
                     98: </p>
                     99:
1.14      deraadt   100: <p>
                    101: The ARC port is complete, including basically everything you can expect
                    102: on any OpenBSD port.
                    103: </p>
                    104:
1.1       deraadt   105: <hr>
1.4       deraadt   106: <p>
1.8       deraadt   107: <a href=ftp.html>Snapshots are made available from time to time.</a>
1.1       deraadt   108:
                    109: <p>
                    110: Send mail to <a href=mailto:deraadt@theos.com>Theo de Raadt</a> and
1.9       niklas    111: <a href=mailto:pefo@openbsd.org>Per Fogelstr&ouml;m</a>.
1.1       deraadt   112: </p>
                    113:
                    114: <hr>
1.7       deraadt   115: <a href=plat.html><img src=back.gif border=0 alt=OpenBSD></a>
1.1       deraadt   116: <a href=mailto:www@openbsd.org>www@openbsd.org</a>
                    117: <br>
1.19    ! imp       118: <small>$OpenBSD: arc.html,v 1.18 1996/12/19 21:33:58 imp Exp $</small>
1.1       deraadt   119:
                    120: </body>
                    121: </html>