Ralf Baechle (ralf@julia.de) writes:
> Hmm... Is the - just by chance - the hardware of the Whitechapel similar
> to the old MIPS machines? Docs are missing for these and make a successful
> port of Linux to these machines difficult.
Alas no. The Whitechapel was actually designed before any of these
others, and quite independently. We'd all have *died* rather than use
anyone else' hardware designs - engineers were proud folk in those
far-off days. Well, OK we snuck a look at the MIPS M/800 cache
design, but that hardly counts (and isn't visible to software, either).
> > .... whereas DEC and Sony are both little-endian.
>
> Are you shure? From what I know Sony (also NeWS!) is wired to big endian.
> The Sony people didn't implement an endian switch in their boards.
Now you've set off Horrible Doubts. Why did I believe that about the
Sony? Can't remember, so Ralf is likely right. But I agree with him
that none of the systems of that age (that I knew about) were
switchable.
Dominic Sweetman
dom@algor.co.uk
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