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Annotation of www/arc.html, Revision 1.8

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>
                     33: Per Fogelstrom became familiar with the code after porting it to a
                     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>
                     58: The people working the most on OpenBSD/arc currently consists of
                     59: Per Fogelstrom, Theo de Raadt, and a few others. Of course, others are
                     60: very welcome!
                     61: </p>
                     62:
                     63: <p>
                     64: Recent developments:
                     65: <ul>
                     66: <li>ELF shared libraries throughout
                     67: <li>ELF executables that page in, unlike NetBSD where they are
                     68:     read into memory.
                     69: <li>Almost native build. Very soon all the utilities needed will be in the
                     70:     source tree.
                     71: <li>nlist() function that understands a.out, ELF, or ecoff binaries.
                     72: <li>The kvm utilities work.
                     73: </ul>
                     74: </p>
                     75:
                     76: <hr>
1.4       deraadt    77: <p>
1.8     ! deraadt    78: <a href=ftp.html>Snapshots are made available from time to time.</a>
1.1       deraadt    79:
                     80: <p>
                     81: Send mail to <a href=mailto:deraadt@theos.com>Theo de Raadt</a> and
                     82: <a href=mailto:pefo@openbsd.org>Per Fogelstrom</a>.
                     83: </p>
                     84:
                     85: <hr>
1.7       deraadt    86: <a href=plat.html><img src=back.gif border=0 alt=OpenBSD></a>
1.1       deraadt    87: <a href=mailto:www@openbsd.org>www@openbsd.org</a>
                     88: <br>
1.8     ! deraadt    89: <small>$OpenBSD: arc.html,v 1.7 1996/09/02 15:11:18 deraadt Exp $</small>
1.1       deraadt    90:
                     91: </body>
                     92: </html>