OpenBSD/vax

History and Status:

VAX has been a supported OpenBSD architecture since early 2000, when code was synchronized with NetBSD's port. Being the second architecture to run BSD Unix (in 1979!), it seems appropriate that these venerable vaxen should still have a modern OS. The codebase is mostly from Berkeley, with contributions of free code from Digital, Mt Xinu, NetBSD, OpenBSD and others. Development is ongoing, and changes are shared among VAX hackers even to this day. The result of this work is an Operating System that is stable and familiar to any OpenBSD user.

Significant changes post 3.1:

Corrected handling of arithmetic fault allows SIGFPE, SIG_IGN to work
Kernel debugger enhanced to recognise and disassemble two-byte opcodes
Support for booting off MSCP disks integrated

Significant changes between 3.0 and 3.1

Support for "Cougar" machines confirmed
Support for "Legacy" machines added
Binary logical page size changed to 4096 bytes

Significant changes between 2.9 and 3.0:

Support for "Omega" machines added
Event counters attached to most devices
More addressing modes added to the emulation system

Significant changes between 2.8 and 2.9:

Support for 16 filesystems per drive
Emulation of the EMODD instruction
Support for "Cheetah" machines added
Interrupt signals no longer cause ksh subshells to core

OpenBSD runs on a wide variety of VAX hardware, but our personal inventory of systems is limited. OpenBSD/vax may actually run on your machine even if it's not listed here, and we rely on your testing and feedback to keep this list up to date. After you finish installing your new system, consider running "dmesg |mail dmesg@openbsd.org" to help us determine what types of hardware people are using.

Tested systems:

VAXstation/MicroVAX 2000
VAXstation 3100/{30,40} (SCSI)
VAXstation 3100/{38,48} (SCSI)
VAXstation 3100/76 (SCSI)
VAXstation 4000/VLC (SCSI)
VAXstation 4000/60 (SCSI)
VAXstation 4000/90 (SCSI)
MicroVAX 3100/{10,20}{,e} (SCSI)
MicroVAX 3100/80 (SCSI)
MicroVAX 3100/90 (SCSI)
MicroVAX 3300
VAX 4000-100 (SCSI)
VAX 4000-105 (SCSI)
VAX 4000-200
VAX 4000-300
VAX 4000-{4,5,6}00
VAX 4000-500A

Projects being worked on:

VAXstation 2000's HDC9224 (floppy/mfm hard disk controller)
MSCP support may still be rough
Shared libraries? eventually...
Support for any new systems we encounter

Documentation we're looking for:

Programming info for LCG or SPGFX framebuffers
Software references for SHAC DSSI
Any edition VARM

Known problems:

toolchain issues - overzealous gcc optimizer
pmap - addressing limits

In addition to formal releases, snapshots that reflect our current work are available for download from the ftp mirrors, and a mailing has been set up at vax@openbsd.org. To join the OpenBSD/vax mailing list, send a message body of "subscribe vax" to majordomo@OpenBSD.org. Please be sure to check our mailing list policy before subscribing.

The OpenBSD/vax port maintainers are Brandon Creighton and Hugh Graham.

www@openbsd.org
$OpenBSD: vax.html,v 1.35 2002/07/04 12:15:17 hugh Exp $