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Annotation of www/arc.html, Revision 1.3

1.1       deraadt     1: <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC  "-//IETF//DTD HTML Strict//EN">
                      2: <html>
                      3: <head>
                      4: <title>OpenBSD/arc</title>
                      5: <base href=http://www.openbsd.org/>
                      6: <link rev=made href=mailto:www@openbsd.org>
                      7: <meta name="resource-type" content="document">
                      8: <meta name="description" content="the OpenBSD/arc page">
                      9: <meta name="keywords" content="openbsd,arc">
                     10: <meta name="distribution" content="global">
                     11: <meta name="copyright" content="This document copyright 1996 by OpenBSD, Inc.">
                     12: </head>
                     13:
                     14: <body>
                     15:
                     16: <h2>OpenBSD/arc</h2>
                     17:
                     18: <hr>
                     19: <h3><strong>History and Status:</strong></h3>
                     20:
                     21: <p>
                     22: The early history is not very clear. Apparently the first work was
                     23: done by CMU as part of their Mach project.  The initial hardware was
                     24: the DEC R2000/R3000-based Decstations.  This code was later used by
                     25: both the Sprite and BSD groups.  The 4.4BSD code, known as the `pmax'
                     26: port, was made freely available in mid '93.  It was merged into the
                     27: NetBSD tree by a variety of people, but has never been very stable,
                     28: reliable, or complete.  Compiler toolkit problems have plagued the
                     29: port because the standard a.out executable format is an imperfect
                     30: match to the MIPS architecture.
                     31: </p>
                     32:
                     33: <p>
                     34: Per Fogelstrom became familiar with the code after porting it to a
                     35: home-built IDT R3081 based board.  Subsequently he added R4400 support
                     36: when porting it to the MIPS R4400 Acer PICA board.  Willowglen
                     37: Singapore purchased a second PICA board for Theo de Raadt so that he
                     38: could improve the port for use as a development system for an internal
                     39: project.  Since then Theo and Per have had ethernet and a few other
                     40: small projects working.
                     41: </p>
                     42:
                     43: <p>
                     44: The Acer PICA is a dead platform.  Acer no longer makes the machine,
                     45: but even worse the machines are very rare.  But the Acer PICA was just
                     46: one of a whole family of similar machines built by other companies
                     47: like MIPS, Deskstation, NEC, Olivetti.  These machines were known as
                     48: ARC machines, built according to the "Advanced RISC Computing" specification.
                     49: </p>
                     50:
                     51: <p>
                     52: As a result, the code has been modified to make it more versatile, and
                     53: eventually it should support a larger whole range of ARC machines.
                     54: Hopefully a port will result that can run on the full range of MIPS
1.2       deraadt    55: processors: R3000, R4000, R4400, R46x0, R5000, and R10000.
1.1       deraadt    56: </p>
                     57:
                     58: <p>
                     59: The people working the most on OpenBSD/arc currently consists of
                     60: Per Fogelstrom, Theo de Raadt, and a few others. Of course, others are
                     61: very welcome!
                     62: </p>
                     63:
                     64: <p>
                     65: Recent developments:
                     66: <ul>
                     67: <li>ELF shared libraries throughout
                     68: <li>ELF executables that page in, unlike NetBSD where they are
                     69:     read into memory.
                     70: <li>Almost native build. Very soon all the utilities needed will be in the
                     71:     source tree.
                     72: <li>nlist() function that understands a.out, ELF, or ecoff binaries.
                     73: <li>The kvm utilities work.
                     74: </ul>
                     75: </p>
                     76:
                     77: <hr>
                     78: <h3><strong>Where to get it?</strong></h3>
                     79:
                     80: Old pica Snapshots are available at:<p>
                     81:
                     82: <ul>
                     83: <li><a href=ftp://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/snapshots/pica>
                     84: ftp://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/snapshots/pica</a><br>
                     85: located at Rutgers University, eastern USA.
                     86: <!-- davem@openbsd.org -->
                     87: <li><a href=ftp://ftp.ibp.fr/pub/OpenBSD/snapshots/pica>
                     88: ftp://ftp.ibp.fr/pub/OpenBSD/snapshots/pica</a><br>
                     89: located in France.
                     90: <!-- ftpmaint@ftp.ibp.fr -->
1.3     ! deraadt    91: <li><a href=ftp://hal.heuris.com/pub/OpenBSD/snapshots/pica>
        !            92: ftp://hal.heuris.com/pub/OpenBSD/snapshots/pica</a><br>
        !            93: located in mid-western USA.
        !            94: <!-- johns@heuris.com -->
1.1       deraadt    95: </ul>
                     96: You should also read the <a href=snapshots.html>
                     97: general description about OpenBSD snapshots</a>.
                     98: </p>
                     99:
                    100: <p>
                    101: Send mail to <a href=mailto:deraadt@theos.com>Theo de Raadt</a> and
                    102: <a href=mailto:pefo@openbsd.org>Per Fogelstrom</a>.
                    103: </p>
                    104:
                    105: <hr>
                    106: <a href=/><img src=icons/back.gif border=0 alt=OpenBSD></a>
                    107: <a href=mailto:www@openbsd.org>www@openbsd.org</a>
                    108: <br>
1.3     ! deraadt   109: <small>$OpenBSD: arc.html,v 1.2 1996/07/05 22:15:01 deraadt Exp $</small>
1.1       deraadt   110:
                    111: </body>
                    112: </html>