68300

>> Will the common low-end parallel port BDM units work on anything other
>> than an x86 based host PC?
>
>with GNU, so you're contractually obligated to have the source and do
>with it as you please within the bounds of the GPL.  provided such a
>platform has a parallel port, it's theoretically possible to port an the
>device driver.

I'm not sure how much direct access you have the the parallel port signals
on say, an SGI Octane running IRIX.  Even if you wanted to write an IRIX
driver to bit-bang the lines, there's no guarantee that you can get the
docs on the SGI iron to make it work.  NetBSD and OpenBSD support some of
the Sun workstations, so they'd probably be an easier fit.


>the other option is an ethernet-based wiggler like the visionICE II or

Hah!  I bought a VisionICE off ebay some time ago.  Thanks for reminding
me.  But I wasn't planning on spending a lot of time being a
CPU32-wiggler-on-non-x86-platform-pioneer...


>if you can get over the learning curve of the GNU tools, they can be
>extremely rewarding to use, since you don't have to worry about support

Agreed.  I use the GNU tools for my Palm, ARM, and H8 development.


>contracts or per-seat licenses, and there's enough momentum in the
>community that you don't have to worry about support being dropped.  in

Didn't I read on the RTEMS list that gdb dropped i960 recently?


>discontinuatino are much more limited.  I have received better support
>from other GNU tool and RTEMS users than I ever did from EST, and I
>never even paid the GNU users for a support contract.  (:

I also receive better free tech support from the semiconductor vendors
(such as Moto) than I ever did with paid 'support' from diab, SDSI, or
embedded power/empower/quadros systems (RTXC vendor).


newell