> > Dunno.  It'd make the kernel a lot bigger.  Maybe if the kernel were 
> > split into several modules, with the booter assembling them at boot time 
> > for the particular system into the netbsd file.  Complicated and 
> > time-consuming, but worth considering for complete machine-independence.  
> 
> I don't really know anything about how the PMMU is configured, but from
> reading pmap_bootstrap.c, it looks like it will initialize the PMMU
> if it is not setup correctly.  So.. again, what exactly is MODE32 doing
> that can't be done by the kernel?

Probably nothing. It's just that it knows more about what's up than we do.
:-) To be honest, I don't really know how it works its magic, but its
main effect is to patch the roms and get the memory system to switch
to 32-bit addressing. We don't really care about the patched roms
(as they don't make it to the MRG stuff). We just want that 32-bit
addressing.

You're right that we could do the same thing ourselves (though I'd
vote on doing it w/ a booter rather than w/ the kernel). But Apple
did strange things for evidently-good-to-them reasons. Reasons which
they won't share with us. Since we have limited resources, my thought
is let's work on other stuff, like a PPC port, new SCSI, getting the
serial ports more robust and machine-independent (multiple NetBSD
ports use custom copies of the zs driver we stole from the sun port)
- a place I'm working on and will appreciate sugestions -, getting
the slot manager MRG working so we can talk to the drivers on video
cards & have X change the color palette, better Ethernet, IDE support,
and all the other things on Allen's to-do list. Note: I know others
are working on many of these things & appreciate their efforts!

[stuff about IIsi's booting color deleted]
> Ahh, I didn't know about this.  Excellent!  Too bad I have a IIci.. :(

Hmm. I thought our IIci at work'd boot in color. Maybe it's just it's in
color by the time it gets to all the inits we torture that poor thing
with. :-)

> Anyway, I suppose my talking about this is a waste, as I can't actually
> write the code. :-)  I suppose I need to get my machine working right
> with the current Booter/kernel configuration before I go looking for
> new dandy features.

But if you can do that kind of digging around, and are comfortable
w/ 68k asm, we can use your assistance. :-)

Take care,

Bill