OpenBSD/hp300

OpenBSD/hp300 runs on most of the HP 9000 series 300 and 400 workstations, based on the Motorola 680x0 processor family.

There is currently no maintainer for this port, although Todd Miller (millert@openbsd.org) and Miod Vallat (miod@openbsd.org) hack on it from time to time. Others are definitely welcome to contribute!

Table of contents

• History of the port
• Current status
• Project list
• Supported hardware
• Getting and installing OpenBSD/hp300

History:

OpenBSD follows in the footsteps of 4.4BSD by supporting the hp300; most types of machine are supported with 68020 or better processors, along with SCSI and HP-IB storage devices.

OpenBSD/hp300 runs 8k pagesize executables natively (the first operating system for the hp300 to do so), maintaining the standard binary format used by all other OpenBSD m68k platforms.

Over the time, the 4.4BSD codebase was extended and corrected, and the hp300 port switched to the regular config(8) for kernel configuration.

Shortly after OpenBSD 2.9 was released, support was added for the 425e model, using a serial console on the first serial port.

Recent development features the replacement of the old hp300-specific SCSI code base with the generic SCSI subsystem (as of 3.6), dynamic attachment and detachment of HP-HIL devices, support for the SGC bus and frame buffers, as well as the Apollo Domain keyboard and mouse (in -CURRENT only).

Current status:

Currently, all the hardware listed in the supported hardware section below boots multi-user, and supports enough of the on-board devices to be generally usable, unless specified otherwise.

OpenBSD/hp300 is able to run sun3 SunOS binaries via the COMPAT_SUNOS kernel option (a few have been tested and work). COMPAT_HPUX is also available for HP-UX binaries, but has not been tested recently (but this used to be enough to get HP-UX X11 environment to run).

Slower machines may sometimes have problems booting with a serial console. The symptoms of this are panics during the kernel autoconfiguration process; this can be avoided by using faster/different terminals or by eliminating the terminal's use of flow control.

A native, unaccelerated X11R6 server is available for all supported frame buffers but the SGC frame buffers.

Projects (in no particular order):

• Provide an X11 server for the SGC frame buffers.

Supported hardware:

Supported machines

• HP 9000/300 series:
  • 68020-based: 318, 319, 320, 330 and 350
  • 68030-based: 340, 345, 360, 370 and 375
  • 68040-based: 380 and 385

• HP 9000/400 series:
  • 68030-based: 400
  • 68040-based: 425 and 433

  These machines are not supported when configured for Domain/OS; the ROM must be in HP-UX mode in order to boot the system. Please refer to the hp300 FAQ page for information on how to change the ROM mode.

SCSI controllers and peripherals

• 98658A built-in and add-on SCSI interface (spc)

• SCSI-1 disk drives (sd). ^(*)
• SCSI-1 cdrom drives (cd). ^(*)
• Autochangers (ch).
• Tape drives: HP DAT, Exabyte, and SCSI QIC drives such as the Archive Viper (st).

^(*) SCSI-2 peripherals are known to work, but this may require changing a jumper on some drives. Refer to your hardware documentation for details.

HP-IB/CS80 controllers and peripherals

• 98624 built-in interface (nhpib)
• 98625A and 98625B ``fast'' interface (fhpib)

• Most HP disks, including: 7912, 7914, 7933, 7936, 7937, 7945, 7957, 7958, 7959, 2200, and 2203 (hd)
• Low-density cartridge drives: 7914, 7946, and 9144 (ct)
• High-density cartridge drives: 9145 (ct)
• 1/2" tape drives: 7974A, 7978A/B, 7979A, 7980A, and 7980XC (ct)

Serial ports

• 98644 built-in and add-on card single port (dca)
• 98642 4-port mux (dcm)
• 98638 8-port mux (dcm)
• 400-series Apollo 3-port serial/keyboard mux (apci)
  (The first port is typically configured as a dca device).

Ethernet interfaces

• 98643 built-in and add-on LAN cards (le)

Frame buffers

• 98543, 98544, 98545, and 98547 color and monochrome Topcat (topcat)
• 98548, 98549, 98550, and A1416A color and monochrome Catseye, (topcat)
• 98700 and 98710 Gatorbox (gbox)
• 98720 and 98721 Renaissance (rbox)
• 98730 and 98731 DaVinci (dvbox)
• A1096A monochrome Hyperion (hyper)
• EVRX (425e on-board) and SGC frame buffers (sti)

Input devices

• General interface supporting all HIL devices (hil):
  • Keyboards (hilkbd)
  • mice and button boxes (hilms)
  • ID module (hilid)
  Serial mice connected to a HIL to quad converter are also known to work.
• Apollo Domain keyboard and mouse (on 400-series). (dnkbd)

Miscellaneous

• Battery-backed real-time clock (except on 425e)
• Printers and plotters on RS232 and HP-IB (ppi)

More information about hardware configuration may be found on the hp300 FAQ page.

Unsupported machines

• 310 and all other 68010 based systems

Unsupported devices

• 425e built-in audio.
• Parallel port on the 4xx models.
• X-Genesis, Y-Genesis and TurboVRX TigerShark frame buffers.
• ISA slot on the 4XXt models.
• EISA slots on the 4XXs models.

Getting and installing OpenBSD/hp300:

The latest supported OpenBSD/hp300 release is OpenBSD 3.6. Here are the OpenBSD/hp300 3.6 installation instructions .

Snapshots are made available from time to time, in this location as well as in a few mirrors. Here are the OpenBSD/hp300 snapshot installation instructions as well.