NetBSD/mvme68k: Notes on Supported Boards
These are the Motorola Single Board Computers that NetBSD/mvme68k supports.
These are the other supported VMEbus boards that NetBSD/mvme68k supports.
CPU-specific support for the MVME147 family of Single Board Computers was written by Chuck Cranor.
Initially introduced in 1988, the MVME147 family is Motorola's oldest Single Board Computer (SBC) product. It was the first VME board with integrated networking, serial communications, mass storage interface, and parallel port. This VMEbus SBC is based on the MC68030 microprocessor.
NetBSD/mvme68k runs on Motorola MVME147 boards, with as little as 4MB of RAM, though 8MB or more is recommended. Note: A bug in the boot code for releases <= 1.3.2 causes problems on 4Mb boards. This has been fixed in -current and 1.3.3 onwards. Nearly all of the on-board MVME147 hardware is supported:
- Battery-backed real-time clock
- Network interfaces
- on-board Lance AM7990 Ethernet
- Parallel port
- on-board Centronics style printer port
- SCSI (most disks, tapes, CD-ROMs, etc)
- on-board Western Digital wd33c93 SCSI bus interface chip using DMA facilities of the board (asynchronous SCSI only)
- Serial ports (RS232)
- on-board Zilog Z8530 dual serial controller
- built-in console and tty01 - tty03, with speeds up to 38400 baud
- VMEbus
- all VMEbus boards supported by NetBSD's machine-independent VMEbus framework. See /sys/dev/vme for details.
The following on-board hardware is not yet directly supported by the kernel:
- NVRAM (reading and writing)
NetBSD/mvme68k also fully supports VMEbus RAM cards in both A24/D32 and A32/D32 address spaces. (Note: On MVME147s with < 16Mb of internal RAM, access to A24/D32 space is restricted. There is no A24/D32 access on MVME147s with >= 16Mb internal RAM.)
- Due to a design flaw on the board, adding VMEbus RAM will actually slow the system down! This is caused by the hardware forcibly disabling the CPU's cache on VMEbus accesses. Work is in progress in NetBSD-current to prioritize memory segments so that faster memory is allocated first, in preference to slower memory. This should help improve performance of systems using VMEbus RAM.
Board-specific support for the MVME162 was written by Steve Woodford.
The second generation MVME162 family and MVME172 family Single Board Computers are based on the MC68040/MC68LC040 and MC68060/MC68LC060 microprocessors. These second generation SBCs offer faster processors and additional on-board memory capability.
NetBSD/mvme68k 1.5 runs on Motorola MVME162 boards, with as little as 4MB of RAM (with the help of a VMEbus RAM card), though 8MB or more is recommended. NetBSD/mvme68k -current runs on Motorola MVME172 boards.
The major parts of the on-board MVME162 and MVME172 hardware are supported:
- Battery-backed real-time clock
- Network interfaces
- on-board Ethernet Intel i82596 controller
- SCSI (most disks, tapes, CD-ROMs, etc)
- on-board NCR 53c710 SCSI bus interface chip using DMA facilities of the board supporting synchronous transfers up to 10 Mbytes/second.
- Serial ports (RS232)
- on-board Zilog Z85230 communications controllers
- built-in console and tty01 - tty03, with speeds up to 38400 baud
- VMEbus
- all VMEbus boards supported by NetBSD's machine-independent VMEbus framework. See /sys/dev/vme for details.
- MEMC040 (onboard memory controllers)
The following on-board hardware is not yet directly supported by the kernel:
- NVRAM (reading and writing)
- IP Controllers (Industry Pack sites)
Board-specific support for the MVME167 and MVME177 was written by Steve Woodford.
The second generation MVME167 family and MVME177 family Single Board Computers are based on the MC68040 and MC68060 microprocessors. These second generation SBC offers a faster processor and additional on-board memory capability.
NetBSD/mvme68k 1.4 runs on Motorola MVME167 boards, with as little as 8MB of RAM, though 16MB or more is recommended. NetBSD/mvme68k -current runs on Motorola MVME177 boards. Nearly all of the on-board MVME167/MVME177 hardware is supported:
- Battery-backed real-time clock
- Network interfaces
- on-board Ethernet Intel i82596 controller
- Parallel port
- on-board Centronics style printer port
- SCSI (most disks, tapes, CD-ROMs, etc)
- on-board NCR 53c710 SCSI bus interface chip using DMA facilities of the board supporting synchronous transfers up to 10 Mbytes/second.
- Serial ports (RS232)
- on-board Cirrus Logic CD2401 communications controller
- built-in console and tty01 - tty03, with speeds up to 38400 baud
- VMEbus
- all VMEbus boards supported by NetBSD's machine-independent VMEbus framework. See /sys/dev/vme for details.
- MEMC040 (onboard memory controllers)
The following on-board hardware is not yet directly supported by the kernel:
- NVRAM (reading and writing)
Any VMEbus RAM board which does not require software to set it up should work with MVME147 cards. At this time, VMEbus RAM boards are not officially supported with other MVME boards.
These VMEbus RAM boards are known to work the NetBSD/mvme68k.
The list of VMEbus RAM boards known to work is currently under development. If you have a VMEbus RAM board that works with NetBSD/mvme68k please send the model number to www@NetBSD.org. It will be added to the list.
These transition boards are compatible with the MVME147, MVME167 and MVME177 family of single board computers.
- MVME712A
- MVME712B
- MVME712-012
- MVME712AM
- MVME712M
- MVME712-013
These are some general comments that apply to NetBSD/mvme68k.
- Application code for any m68k-based NetBSD platform will run on all the mvme68k single-board computers without change.
- If necessary, a single kernel image can be built which will boot on all the MVME models.
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