NetBSD/mipsco: History

In July, 2000, Wayne Knowles, a researcher in New Zealand, successfully ported NetBSD to his RC3230 made by MIPS Computer Systems, Inc. The RC3230 was a R3000A desktop box commonly called R3000 Magnum; a popular workstation that was re-badged by companies such as Bull and Olivetti. The port name was decided to be NetBSD/mipsco so other computers by MIPS Computer Systems could be included in it.

In early August, NetBSD/mipsco was merged into the main NetBSD tree, and saw many initial improvements. Changes were committed to allow the kernel to read either a BSD disklabel created under NetBSD/sparc or a MIPS volume header created under Risc OS. This change allowed the stand alone shell to directly load a NetBSD kernel and mount a filesystem - NetBSD/mipsco became self-sufficient.

The following persons helped greatly in the process of creating this port:

If you're interested in following or becoming a part of the current development efforts, there's a port-mipsco mailing list. This list can be subscribed to either on the NetBSD mailing lists page on the NetBSD web site, or by sending a mail with the body of "subscribe port-mipsco" to majordomo@NetBSD.org. More information is also available on the NetBSD/mipsco port page.