On Wed, 13 Mar 1996 06:48:16 -0800 
 "Michael L. VanLoon -- HeadCandy.com" <michaelv@HeadCandy.com> wrote:

 > >Unless I am as ignorant as many believe, I understand the r4400 is
 > >one of the CPU types that SGI boxes use. This gives us some level
 > >of CPU support for the SGI machines in the future. Is anyone even
 > >considering NetBSD/sgi or whatever ?
 > 
 > I may be naive, but I was under the impression that for some time you
 > could leverage some of the work done on the DEC PMAX port to start an
 > SGI port.  The devices would probably all be different, but both ports
 > use MIPS RXXXX processors.

Yah ... the SGI is a big-endian MIPS, but that's really not a problem.  
Actually, quite a lot of SGI hardware is run-of-the-mill kind of stuff.  
You'd probably stumble on the graphics hardware a bit, and possible the 
DMA goo that the GIO bus SGIs have (Indigo, Indy), but other than that...

Probably a good first step would be to try and tackle one of the older 
Personal Iris systems using a serial console.  Now, if you can just find 
some documentation on where all of the hardware lives.... :-)

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Jason R. Thorpe                                       thorpej@nas.nasa.gov
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