Running NetBSD/vax

Published on 2005-09-24 by Mark VandeWettering

<img decoding="async" src="/images/wayback/vaxsmall.png" alt="Screendump of My Vax"/ class="centered"/>

Well, above is a screendump of my latest computer acquisition: a Microvax 3800 which I installed NetBSD on. Wackiness!

What’s even more wacky is that it didn’t cost me a cent. Well, maybe that isn’t so wacky, after all, would you pay money for a Microvax? 🙂

Basically, I’ve been on a bit of a retro kick lately, what with the Atari 2600 programming and all. While goofing around, I noted that you could run the latest NetBSD 2.0 release on simulated Vax hardware. So I compiled the simulator port, downloaded the vaxcd.iso file, and did it.

Et voila! It works.

Probably even runs faster in emulation on my lowly 1ghz Via C3 box than the real thing. 🙂

I know, this is one of the more useless things I’ve ever done, I just had to share.