Re: VSTa...

[newsham@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu writes:]

>Does the 68k port have a mailing list of their own or do they
>use the main list? How can I get in touch with the people/person
>doing the port?

There has been so little activity that the answer is "neither". You should
bounce a message off the list to stir up a discussion. As I recollect, the
big problem is that there are lots of boards with 68000's or EC (Embedded
Controller) parts which lack an MMU. VSTa uses VM in support of messaging,
so either it's a rewrite of the messaging part of VSTa (plus rewrite of how
exec'ing of files is done, plus no doubt lots of other things) or you have
to connect with folks using an '020+PMMU or '030. The '040 uses
incompatible data structures (three level PTE tree) which can add to the
complexity if you want to support it as well. I believe both the '020 and
'030 can do the three level format, so that might be your lowest common
denominator.

cisco routers are 68K based so a cross compilation is trivial for me. It's
just that all our boxes use EC parts, so I can't do a port to them. If I
had an Amiga or HP 300 I could cross compile something for them. The VM
part of the port is pretty simple as the PMMU and '030 use a structure
almost identical to the i386. All that remains is a little assembly
language stuff and a base set of servers--console and disk, in particular.
Probably not even disk, to get started--use the /tmp file server and
exercise context switching and stuff like that first.

I'm Cc'ing the list because I guess I've written enough now to wake up
anybody with latent desires of a 68030 port of VSTa. :-)

                                                Andy
Received on Fri Apr 29 15:30:04 1994