OpenBSD/mac68k

OpenBSD/mac68k used to run on many of the Motorola 680x0-based Apple Macintosh computers. It used to require a Motorola 68020 or better processor, with an external Motorola 68851 PMMU in case of a 68020.

The OpenBSD/mac68k port was discontinued after the 5.1 release.

There is currently no one working on bringing this port back to life. The source code is still available in the CVS Attic, and code can be found in NetBSD as well.

Table of contents

• History of the port
• Supported hardware
• Getting and installing OpenBSD/mac68k

History:

The mac68k port of OpenBSD was derived from NetBSD/mac68k, and it used to support most of the same hardware as NetBSD.

Active building and testing of OpenBSD/mac68k was discontinued after OpenBSD 4.6 due to lack of interest with developers and builder.

Eventually the lack of a proper firmware interface, requiring the use of a MacOS application as the bootloader, with little or no possibility of updating this application to match progress in OpenBSD (let alone rebuild it with a free software toolchain) convinced the developers to give up supporting this port, and remove the code from the tree.

Supported hardware:

Supported models

OpenBSD/mac68k used to run on a large part of the 680x0-based Macintosh computers. The kernel itself had support for the following processor combinations:

• 68020 with 68851 PMMU and 68881 FPU
• 68030 with 68882 FPU
• 68040 (not including the 68LC040)

The following Macintosh models used to be supported and tested. This means that at least the SCSI controller, serial console and on-board ethernet would function on these models. On some of these machines, a full 68040 CPU was required to replace the default 68LC040 CPU.

• Classic family: SE30
• LC family: LC, LC II, LC III, LC III+, LC475, Performa 400-430, Performa 450, Performa 460, Performa 475, Performa 476
• Centris family: 610, 650
• Quadra family: 605, 610, 630, 650, 660AV, 700, 800, 840AV, 900, 950

Supported devices

• Internal SCSI controllers and peripherals:
  • Quadra/Centris series' onboard NCR 53c96 SCSI controller (esp).
  • Macintosh II-series', Performa, and LC-series' onboard NCR 5380 SCSI controller (ncrscsi, sbc).
  • SCSI disk drives (sd).
  • SCSI cdrom drives (cd).
  • Autochangers (ch).
  • Tape drives (st).
• Internal sound (asc).
• NuBus internal expansion bus (nubus).
• Internal video and most NuBus video cards (macfb).
• Both internal serial ports (zsc).
• ADB keyboards and mice (adb) (except on the IIfx, Quadra 900 and 950).
• Ethernet cards based on the Natl. Semiconductor 8390 (Asante, Apple, and a few others) (ae).
• Quadra/Centris AV series' onboard MACE ethernet (mc).
• Some ethernet cards based on the SONIC chip including internal Ethernet on many of Apple's non-AV Quadras/Centrises (sn).

Untested systems

• Classic family: Color Classic, Classic II
• Macintosh II family: Mac II, IIx, IIcx, IIci, IIsi, IIfx, IIvi, IIvx, Performa 600
• 500 family: 520, 550, 575, 580, Mac TV

Unsupported systems

• PowerPC-based Macs. Some of these are supported in the OpenBSD/macppc port.
• Powerbook family. Hardware capabilities limit the usability of these systems.
• Machines based on the 68LC040 processor. Unfortunately, the chip itself contains a major bug for which there is no software workaround available in OpenBSD.

Unsupported devices

• Apple Communication Slot (CS) ethernet cards.
• Any other NuBus card not listed above.
• Floppy drive.
• IOP ADB subsystem on the IIfx, Quadra 900 and 950.
• IDE drives.

Getting and installing OpenBSD/mac68k:

The last supported OpenBSD/mac68k release was OpenBSD 5.1.