Annotation of www/arc.html, Revision 1.22
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4: <title>OpenBSD/arc</title>
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7: <meta name="description" content="the OpenBSD/arc page">
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1.21 deraadt 10: <meta name="copyright" content="This document copyright 1996 by OpenBSD.">
1.1 deraadt 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 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
1.20 imp 38: project. Since then Theo, Per and others have completed the port.
1.1 deraadt 39: </p>
40:
41: <p>
42: The Acer PICA is a dead platform. Acer no longer makes the machine,
43: but even worse the machines are very rare. But the Acer PICA was just
44: one of a whole family of similar machines built by other companies
45: like MIPS, Deskstation, NEC, Olivetti. These machines were known as
46: ARC machines, built according to the "Advanced RISC Computing" specification.
1.15 imp 47: No new ARC BIOS machines for MIPS will likely be manufactured.
48: Microsoft has announced that it will no longer support MIPS after NT 4.0.
49: OpenBSD/arc provides a good alterantive to NT, especially now that no more OS
50: updates for NT MIPS will happen.
1.1 deraadt 51: </p>
52:
53: <p>
54: As a result, the code has been modified to make it more versatile, and
55: eventually it should support a larger whole range of ARC machines.
56: Hopefully a port will result that can run on the full range of MIPS
1.2 deraadt 57: processors: R3000, R4000, R4400, R46x0, R5000, and R10000.
1.1 deraadt 58: </p>
59:
60: <p>
1.22 ! johns 61: <h3>Currently the port supports the following:</h3>
1.12 deraadt 62: <ul>
63: <li>Acer Pica: 150MHz R4400PC, ISA, with onboard ethernet, scsi, video,
64: and serial.
65: <li>Deskstation Tyne: 133MHz R4600, ISA and VLB.
1.16 imp 66: <li>Deskstation rPC44: 100MHz R4400PC, EISA bus.
1.12 deraadt 67: </ul>
1.11 deraadt 68: </p>
1.22 ! johns 69:
! 70: <p>
! 71: <h3>Supported devices include:</h3>
! 72: <ul>
! 73: <li> graphics:
! 74: <ul>
! 75: <li> built-in S3 VGA graphics adatper on PICA.
! 76: <li> Standard VGA graphics adapter on rPC44 and Tyne.
! 77: <li> Note that X11R6 currently supports only S3 boards.
! 78: </ul>
! 79:
! 80: <li> keyboard:
! 81: <ul>
! 82: <li> Standard PC compatible keyboard with optionally driver softloaded keymaps.
! 83: </ul>
! 84:
! 85: <li> mouse:
! 86: <ul>
! 87: <li> PS2 mouse on PICA
! 88: <li> Serial mouse on /dev/tty00 on rPC44 and Tyne.
! 89: </ul>
! 90:
! 91: <li> serial ports:
! 92: <ul>
! 93: <li> on-board tty00 and tty01 (PICA. can not yet be used as console)
! 94: <li> ISA tty00 and tty01 on systems without serial ports on the motherboard (Tyne).
! 95: <li> ISA tty02 and tty03 on all ISA capable systems.
! 96: </ul>
! 97:
! 98: <li> parallel ports:
! 99: <ul>
! 100: <li> parallel ports is supported on-board (PICA) or on ISA (rPC44 and Tyne).
! 101: </ul>
! 102:
! 103: <li> floppy:
! 104: <ul>
! 105: <li> floppy is supported on PICA only.
! 106: </ul>
! 107:
! 108: <li> ethernet:
! 109: <ul>
! 110: <li> on-board SONIC ethernet controller (PICA only)
! 111: <li> 3Com Etherlink boards (All ISA capable systems)
! 112: <li> NE2000 compatible ISA boards.
! 113: </ul>
! 114:
! 115: <li> SCSI:
! 116: <ul>
! 117: <li> on-board NCR53C96 SCSI controller (PICA)
! 118: <li> VLB "Buslogic BT-440C/445C" SCSI controller.
! 119: </ul>
! 120:
! 121: <li> IDE:
! 122: <ul>
! 123: <li> IDE disks via wd driver on ISA bus. Bootable only on Deskstation systems.
! 124: </ul>
! 125: </ul>
! 126: </p>
! 127:
1.17 deraadt 128: <p>
1.22 ! johns 129: <h3>The following ports are also being worked on:</h3>
1.17 deraadt 130: <ul>
131: <li>NKK Aquarious R4700 PCI machine.
132: <li>A Willowglen R3081 ARC-lookalike board used as an embedded system.
133: </ul>
134: </p>
1.11 deraadt 135:
136: <p>
1.1 deraadt 137: The people working the most on OpenBSD/arc currently consists of
1.13 deraadt 138: Per Fogelström, Theo de Raadt, Niklas Hallqvist, Warner Losh,
139: and a few others. Of course, others are very welcome!
1.1 deraadt 140: </p>
141:
142: <p>
1.22 ! johns 143: <h3>Recent developments:</h3>
1.1 deraadt 144: <ul>
145: <li>ELF shared libraries throughout
146: <li>ELF executables that page in, unlike NetBSD where they are
147: read into memory.
148: <li>nlist() function that understands a.out, ELF, or ecoff binaries.
149: <li>The kvm utilities work.
1.11 deraadt 150: <li>ISA bus support on the Pica.
151: <li>ISA and VLB support on the Tyne.
1.18 imp 152: <li>ISA bus support on the rPC44.
153: <li>gdb works.
1.19 imp 154: <li>Completely native build.
1.1 deraadt 155: </ul>
156: </p>
157:
1.14 deraadt 158: <p>
159: The ARC port is complete, including basically everything you can expect
160: on any OpenBSD port.
161: </p>
162:
1.1 deraadt 163: <hr>
1.4 deraadt 164: <p>
1.8 deraadt 165: <a href=ftp.html>Snapshots are made available from time to time.</a>
1.1 deraadt 166:
167: <p>
168: Send mail to <a href=mailto:deraadt@theos.com>Theo de Raadt</a> and
1.9 niklas 169: <a href=mailto:pefo@openbsd.org>Per Fogelström</a>.
1.1 deraadt 170: </p>
171:
172: <hr>
1.7 deraadt 173: <a href=plat.html><img src=back.gif border=0 alt=OpenBSD></a>
1.1 deraadt 174: <a href=mailto:www@openbsd.org>www@openbsd.org</a>
175: <br>
1.22 ! johns 176: <small>$OpenBSD: arc.html,v 1.21 1997/04/30 22:18:02 deraadt Exp $</small>
1.1 deraadt 177:
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