NetBSD/mvmeppc is a new port of NetBSD to the Motorola MVME PowerPC Single Board Computers. This was made possible through a donation by Gan Starling of two (plus one loaner) MVME160x boards so that a porting effort could be made. Due to NetBSD’s highly portable architecture, the operating system was up and running multi-user after just two weeks worth of part-time effort.
NetBSD Ported to Motorola MVME PowerPC Boards
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we won’t be able to order parts for it, would we????????
I mean, are these boards for computers that we are likely to have on our desks (or under them)?
Where in the hell are the non-Apple PPC machines that we can buy….
These are single-board computers that Motorola sells to companies that build embedded systems. I’m pretty sure Joe Consumer cannot just call up Motorola sales and buy one. Also, to have a video display you’d also need a pci video card — not sure if standard PC-off-the-shelf models would work here (you might need a “mezzanine pci card” — whatever that is). Of course, these are still all 32-bit computers.
These particular boards are designed to plug into a VME backplane. Many such boards could be plugged into one backplane and all communicate over the same VME bus. Very common in embedded systems. One SBC would likely cost around $700 (my wild guess), so building a whole desktop around it would be a little expensive.
It’s a cool way to run your OS on non-Apple PowerPC hardware. You’d likely be the only one on your block anyway.
…hmm.. isn’t Amiga getting some kind of AmigaONE PPC computer together? The other name I’ve heard in this area is Merlancia — they were supposed to start selling PPC computers in 2001… not sure what happened.