[geeks] Sun Ultra 1

[Joshua Boyd]

On Sat, Aug 07, 2004 at 10:04:53PM -0400, Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote:

> > I've also run into problems with DEFPA cards under NetBSD/sparc64, but
> > obviously isn't relevent to you.
> 
> How about FDDI?  All I need now is all the rest of a FDDI network to go
> with the sbus card I have... :)
> 
> I wish I'd had this card about 6 months ago.  A local Sun shop was
> willing to pay good money for one ASAP, and I couldn't dig one up.

I think that no Sun FDDI card will work under NetBSD.  I hope that
someday that gets fixed.
 
> I might still do that, since I should be able to "upgrade" to
> NetBSD-sparc64 in-place, leaving my current configuration alone.
> 
> That's how I've done uprades on my SS5 server machine for years, going
> back to NetBSD 1.3.x.

If I understand what you are suggesting, I think it won't work.
NetBSD/sparc64 won't run 32bit executables if I understand correctly.
This also is a large bummer about that port.

> I've also considered running Solaris on it, but it's just so much easier
> to build and maintain software on NetBSD.

I generally find Solaris about as easy, as long as I'm using GCC rather
than Sun CC.  
 
> > I keep wanting to do more with NetBSD/sparc64, but I never seem to get
> > around to it.  I intend for that to be my main hardware development
> > platform (USB, PCI soon, firewire someday), , but I haven't gotten
> > that far on any of my hardware projects.
> 
> I have so many projects that never get done, though usually it is
> funding more than anything else.

Well, there are certainly funding issues, but if I knew I could start on
any of the PCI projects next week, I'd find the money to order the stuff
soon.  But, as it is, I have a USB kit, and I still haven't gotten
around to doing anything with it. 

I did realize that my planned project for the USB kit had a significant
flaw in it.  There is a way around it, but I'm not sure my USB chip (the
one on the project board) can handle that, and if it can, it still
significantly complicates things.  I'd like to do something with the kit
to learn about USB programming though, even if I never do anything else
with this kit.