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2008-Mar-17

I learned about many emulators after I asked on netbsd-users a couple days ago. I found many useful websites plus http://www.netbsd.org/ports/emulators.html.

I installed gxemul, simh, es40 (wip), and tme. (I have already used bochs and qemu.)

I tried gxemul for hpcmips and pmax. I created "sparse" files for the pseudo disk image:

dd if=/dev/zero of=nbsd_hpcmips.img bs=1024 count=1 seek=3000000

dd if=/dev/zero of=nbsd_pmax.img bs=1024 count=1 seek=3000000

I fetched 4.0 files for: hpcmipscd-4.0.iso, hpcmips' netbsd-GENERIC.gz, hpcmips installation netbsd.gz kernel, and pmaxcd-4.0.iso. I installed hpcmips on emulated MobilePro 770 with:

gxemul -e mobilepro770 -X -d nbsd_hpcmips.img -d b:hpcmipscd-4.0.iso netbsd.gz

sysinst was the same as i386 and had MBR editor too. Then I booted into new install with:

gxemul -e mobilepro770 -X -d nbsd_hpcmips.img netbsd-GENERIC.gz

It had no network support. dmesg said it was 98.303MHz and 32MB ram. Any way to verify if it is really 98.303MHz? Is that accurate? Next I installed pmax with:

gxemul -x -e 3max -d nbsd_pmax.img -d b:pmaxcd-4.0.iso

Note that capital -X switch is to enable framebuffer. And lower-case -x is to open an xterm. In this case it emulated a serial console. The sysinst didn't have a MBR editor on pmax platform. I was able to boot the new install with:

gxemul -x -e 3max -d nbsd_pmax.img

I see its console was a serial device. Any way to know what /dev/console actually is? Also I could not find any docs for "dz", "lkkbd" or "vsms". Where are these documented?

gxemul is way faster to me than bochs or qemu. Later, I will test simh-vax, es40 (for AlphaServer), and tme (for Sun). I am using these to document some installation and administration steps that may differ on various platforms for my NetBSD book in progress. Email me if you want to look at the 80+ page outline.