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Re: 80386 support



Note - real 80386 support had been broken for, literally, years when it was removed. Apparently, no one cared that much. When I solicited feedback on a patch that would have fixed it (again, years ago), not a single person responded.

-- thorpej@iPhone

On Aug 8, 2008, at 8:50 PM, "Aaron J. Grier" <agrier%poofygoof.com@localhost> wrote:

On Fri, Aug 08, 2008 at 01:02:56AM +0200, Martin Husemann wrote:
- the "real" i386 support did cost us runtime on a very popular arch,
  and apparently was completely (or close to) unused. If anyone with
  such machines in working codition is out there, please speak up -
  we could always revive support for it as a different port, provided
  someone has long term interest in it. I won't hold my breath.

I have a 80386, a 486SLC, and a 486SX that I keep around as curiosities. (the 486SLC was my NAT for years before I replaced it with a sparc 2.) I get the bug to put NetBSD on them roughly once a year as a sanity check,
as a set of touchstones to answer the question "how bloated has NetBSD
gotten?"   (I also have VAX, sparc, and alpha machines that serve
similar purposes.)

I was sad to see 80386 support dropped from -current, but I understand
the lack of interest, and don't have enough experience with it to keep
it alive.  (I do not have anything useful for my 80386 to do anymore
since getting a stack of sparcs.)

so long as CVS history remains intact, the potential for support
returning is always there, even if it effectively becomes a new port.

--
 Aaron J. Grier | "Not your ordinary poofy goof." | 
agrier%poofygoof.com@localhost


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