NetBSD/sys/arch/sun3/STATUS

						<$Revision: 1.2 $> 

This is to be a summary of the status of code, its problems,
and the directions it should and needs to take in the future.

The major bugs:
	
	the clock interrupts are coming at a rate 100 times greater than
	they are programmed for.  When the clock interrupts are going
	at this rate, and the clock interrupt is calling hardclock(),
	it makes no progress beyond enablertclock().  this bug is
	priority one.  Until this works, we won't be able to get
	nfsdiskless operation to work at all.

	trap code.  the assembly part of the trap handling code is
	not currently being used, because at until its time for the
	fork(), it doesn't do much and the sun3 monitor diagnostics
	are better than anything in the trap code.

	This code has been hosted under SunOs.  Its not clear whether
	the sun boot blocks can load kernels linked with our a.out, etc.
	This is a question that *must* be answered.

	I'm not running a current tree, because i can't afford a slip
	connection at the moment.

	there is an insane hack in 'swapnfs', and the
	TIMESINK.nfsdiskless stuff because we don't have any way of
	getting nfsdiskless information yet.  
	

Core code: (i.e sun3/sun3, sun3/include)
----------
	
Random:

	need to compute idprom checksum (was lazy)

	need support for 'eeprom', including a non-sun copyrighted header

	better integration with the eeprom on issues like consoles, and
	       generic boot support

	all the FPUCOPROC support is untested and from the hp300 port.
	It needs to be better integrated and triggered by something other
	than this awful define.  Also need FPU emulation code.

	msgbuf should be allocated later, using the pmap stuff,
	       same with high_segment crud.  see the dvma_alloc code for
	       an example of how much cleaner this is.

	ddb support

	kgdb support

	kernel still isn't protected.

pmap: 

      the pmap module is the most complicated piece of code in the
      port, and it has absolutely no debugging support.  This was a goof.

      pmap module should be 3-level cache, instead of 2.

      fix code so that the early pmap clean stuff isn't necessary.

      better support for running in bootstrap mode,
	i.e before pv_ tables can be allocated.

Device driver support:
----------------------

Missing functionality: 
	OBIO probe support
	match/probe re-computation of default parameters
	OBIO space collision avoidance

Missing busses:

VME - absolute no support, i just don't know shit about it.

Missing drivers:

zs - for the Zilog 8530 that run the mouse, keyboard, and serial ports.
     Sun3s have two 8530s with 2 channels apiece.  Instead of hardwiring
     the connection between particular chips/channels and function, I'd like
     the zs driver to be implemented as a bus supporting n-clients.  In this
     model, the mouse, and keyboard drivers are just optional clients of the
     zs driver, and can be torched if you want to hack up a quick cable
     and use them as serial ports.  This is also the right way to deal
     with the complexities of a zs channels being used for things like
     'kgdb', and synchronous operation.  This design does make the
     core zs driver more complicated, but i think it will be worth it.

scsi - I want to use torek's scsi system, if only to find out whether it is
       any good.  Or we could use Julien's lump of crud.  Either way
       we need:
	    support for the ncr 5380, possibly based on the mach3 5380 code.
	    support for the amd 9516 dma chip

kbd - needs to support sun's kbd interface including support for the
      3 different keyboard modes, basically whatever is neccessary for X.

mouse - needs to support sun's mouse interface down to the letter so that
      X works out of the box

bwtwo - this should be minimal, and is needed first
cg2, cg4, cg6, etc. - unknown complexity
fb - also minimal.  Basically a virtual driver for reaching the frame buffers.
     
fpa - not the 68881, but sun's proprietary thing.  I don't want to
      support this thing as it requires downloaded microcode which
      isn't freely available

Problems with existing drivers:

lance - current driver is based on the hp300 code.  Torek's version
        is also based on the hp300 code but possibly a later revision.
	Should be analyzed further to determine its quality.  Only known
	problem with existing code so far is the non-configurable number of
	receive/send buffers.  This is a result of a hp300 hardware limitation,
	that does not exist in the sun3 or sun4.
	
Boot code:
----------

Currently requires sun bootblks, secondary boot support, etc.  Needs
to be replaced with attention paid to NetBSD's as yet un-developed
NFS diskless architecture.

Some code exists from Sprite for using PROM's exported drivers for
bootstrapping.  This would have to be re-written and added to some
small NFS code perhaps from LBL's bootbootp stuff, etc.  Lots of work
to be done here.

Compatibility:
--------------

Need to integrate Torek's sunos compatibility code in if possible, and
remove the HPUX crud.