NetBSD Progress On Sega's Dreamcast

Nearly a year ago, hemos posted the news that the indefatigable NetBSD project had ported NetBSD to the Hitachi Super-H microprocessor which powers the Dreamcast. Now, hubertf writes: "The port of the NetBSD operating system to Sega's Dreamcast game console is reaching a state where it's near to single user mode. Utilizing the NetBSD/evbsh3 port's simple structure and the fact that it supports both big and little endian architectures as well as the general clean design of the NetBSD operating system helped for this port. Device drivers for the game pad, keyboard, etc. are next on the to-do list of Saitoh Masanobu, who works on this port.

See below for a sample dmesg output,

Please stay tuned for more information!

- Hubert Feyrer, The NetBSD Project

Copyright (c) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000
The NetBSD Foundation, Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright (c) 1982, 1986, 1989, 1991, 1993
The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.

NetBSD 1.5_ALPHA (DREAMCAST) #8: Fri Jul 14 01:42:14 JST 2000

msaitoh@vslock.xxx.yyy:/var/sources/src/sys/arch/evbsh3/compile/DREAMCAST
total memory = 16384 KB
avail memory = 12988 KB
using 230 buffers containing 920 KB of memory
mainbus0 (root)
shb0 at mainbus0
scif0 at shb0 port 0xffe80000-0xffe8000f irq 12
scif0: console
biomask c0000000 netmask c0000000 ttymask e0000000
md0: internal 1440K image area
rn_init: radix functions require max_keylen be set
boot device: root on md0a dumps on md0b
cannot mount root, error = 22
root device (default md0a):"

Of course, what you do with a Dreamcast running NetBSD is up to you. Errr ... just what could you do with a Dreamcast running NetBSD?

Comments

Re:Overly paranoid Import/Export controls?

[imp]

where the Playstation 2 is now under restrictive export controls

This is not true. I travelled to Japan in Early June. I asked the customs officer if the Sony Playstation 2 had any export controls on it, since I was thinking of buying a few to bring back to the US. He told me that no, there were no export controls on it. That the whole thing was some confusion at central government and was cleared up within two days. He also told me that I'd only have to worry about import issues on the country I was bringing them into.

He didn't come out and say it, but some of my Japanese friends did. It was just a ploy by Sony to make the playstation sound really cool.

Oh, there is one last issue with taking a PS2 out of Japan. Sony will not honor the warantees on these units outside of Japan. At least that's what I was told by my Japenese friends. That was a deal killer for me.

ObOnTopic: I think that the port to dreamcast is way cool. Look at how useful the NetBSD/hpcmips port is for the WindowsCE machines that are now being dumped on the market cheaply.

Overly paranoid Import/Export controls?

[Netsnipe]

Now that they've managed to get NetBSD running on a originally games platform such as the Dreamcast, wouldn't the next step be porting other BSD/*nixes such as OpenBSD and Linux? But then this would probably raise more paranoid concerns for the import/export departments of a few governments, most notably Japan, where the Playstation 2 is now under restrictive export controls due to the outrageous and overly paranoid concerns that its massive computing power may be converted into a weapons flight/launch control system. Just curious, is the Dreamcast under any export controls?

Now back to porting OpenBSD to a games platform...so consider this overtly paranoid scenario that might just scare the pants off export authorities:

Games platform with massive graphics processing power + OpenBSD = Massively secure and un-crackable* encrypted system for controlling nuclear weapons from so-called rogue states!

(*some may argue that OpenBSD merely creates this illusion)

Now wouldn't that be an amusing thought!