OpenBSD/mvme88k

A port of the free, Unix-like OpenBSD operating system is available for some systems based on Motorola m88k-based MVME-boards.

Efforts to support this architecure started around 1995 and first sources supporting the MVME187 boards were integrated in October of the same year into the OpenBSD system. Some two years later this initial port was removed and replaced with a new effort to support the MVME187 board in the 2.5 release of OpenBSD. Work continued over the years and support for the MVME188 (including support for multiprocessing—SMP) and MVME197LE boards was added.

Due to problems with and bugs in the GCC toolchain working support for this platform was halfway dropped from the OpenBSD system. Work continued slowly to correct these bugs in the OpenBSD and GCC sources and working support for MVME187 boards was again integrated into OpenBSD in the summer of 2003. Miod Vallat, now the maintainer of the OpenBSD/mvme88k port wrote an interesting OnLamp article describing his efforts to locate and fix the bugs in the GCC-m88k backend.

Supported hardware

• MVME187 board with on-board devices and selected VME expansion boards
• Motorola M8120 - small size system featuring same internals as the MVME187
• MVME188 boards with selected VME expansion boards and in SMP configuration
• MVME197LE boards
• MVME197SP/DP boards
• All systems built around one of the above mentioned MVME systems, this includes: (incomplete)
  • Various Motorola Delta Series 8000 systems, based on both MVME187 and MVME188 boards.
  • Motorola Series 900 Model 810 (MVME187 based)
  • Triton Dolphin System 100 (MVME187 based)

References

• OpenBSD/mvme88k official port page with more information on the supported hardware/devices.
• OpenBSD/mvme88k snapshot (FTP)
• Installation instructions for the above (FTP)
• Miod Vallat's OpenBSD/mvme88k resource page
• Luke Th. Bullock's OpenBSD m88k pages
• Diving into Gcc: OpenBSD and m88k Miod's OnLamp article.

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