From owner-freebsd-chat Wed May 20 21:31:09 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id VAA15335 for freebsd-chat-outgoing; Wed, 20 May 1998 21:31:09 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from softweyr.com ([204.68.178.33]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id VAA15223 for ; Wed, 20 May 1998 21:30:39 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from wes@softweyr.com) Received: from softweyr.com (localhost.softweyr.com [127.0.0.1]) by softweyr.com (8.8.8/8.8.7) with ESMTP id WAA01228; Wed, 20 May 1998 22:30:47 -0600 (MDT) (envelope-from wes@softweyr.com) Message-ID: <3563ADF1.D265F879@softweyr.com> Date: Wed, 20 May 1998 22:30:41 -0600 From: Wes Peters Organization: Softweyr llc X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.04 [en] (X11; I; FreeBSD 2.2.6-RELEASE i386) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" CC: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: talk (fwd) References: <20996.895689524@time.cdrom.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Jordan K. Hubbard wrote: > I'll open the round of nostalgia with some comments on how freaking > NICE the NS32K architecture was. And yeah, I own a PC532. The PC532 was an amazing development, you just don't see open hardware like that anymore. IIRC, the PC523 grew out the 'net station' project, were a bunch of hardware and software hackers on USENET were soliciting attempts to make a new workstation architecture developed entired on the net. I was involved with a group centered around Weber State University and the software community at Hill AFB who developed one of the architectures. The idea was the community would develope several systems and the "best" would win the hearts and minds of the community. What actually happened was that the PC532 was the first out with working hardware *and* an OS, and everyone else stopped. Ours was based on the AMD 29020, which had a nice set of support chips available from AMD, including SCSI and ethernet. We actually had a hacked-up first unit running off an AMD proto board, several ancillary boards, some ribbon cables, and one wire-wrapped mess. We didn't have a floppy controller, and CD-ROMs hadn't been invented yet. We called our little machine the "SPUDstation" because some of the AMD chips came from the fab plant in Boise, and because we'd rounded up a bunch of plastic potatoes about 12 x 8 inches to put the board in when we were done. We had the serial console, SCSI, and ethernet working and were able to load code over the network using the AMD boot monitor, and were working on the 4.3 BSD locore.s and task-switch when the PC532 was announced. One of the group got a PC532 and everyone just stopped. It was mildly heart breaking to see all that work come to naught. I've never written a line of 29K assembler code since then (and probably never will now). Sigh. Those *were* the glory days, when I was young and single and it was OK to take a week off work to spend 14 hour days in a lab with other guys hacking on something that would never make any of us a dime. -- "Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?" Wes Peters Softweyr LLC http://www.softweyr.com/~softweyr wes@softweyr.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message