got netbsd 2.0.3 to boot on 11/730 in sim

The vax unix nerds on the list might find this mildly interesting: I hacked a copy of simh vax780 to look like a vax 11/730. I made a modified version of the standalone netbsd "boot" program which does nfs loads from a deuna (it will do copy's too, which is handy at times) With that I finished debugging netbsd 2.0.3 on the 730. I've gotten it to boot to a shell prompt on a simh 11/730 with 4mb of memory using an nfs root. woo hoo! So, next I'll make a disk image and put my unibus scsi card in my real 730 and debug that. With any luck it will just work. Once it's going on real hardware I'll get it going on the latest netbsd (4.0?) and get a patch back to the netbsd/vax maintainer. [for those who care, I use a linux program which simulates the tu58 to boot my 730. I made a boot tape image with putr which contains the netbsd boot program (as well as the other files needed to load microcode, etc). I plan to spend some time and make a linux program which will put together valid tu58 tape images, just to make my life easier, since putr requires DOS.] I have to give the netbsd folks a lot of credit. Their posix build system is very handy. But note that releases before 2.0.3 will *NOT* build on a posix machine - they require native netbsd to build cleanly. I've always had a soft spot for the 730; maybe because the 780 was just too damn big! :-) -brad