Request for information: 3B2 device drivers

[jnelson at tle.dec.com]

I am affiliated with a research group at my university which is trying to learn
as much as possible about the architecture of the AT&T 3B2/400 systems.  Our
ultimate goal is to write a distributed operating system which will run on the
3B2.  We have purchased manuals on the WE* 32100 CPU and WE 32101 MMU; we also
have the 3B2 Technical Reference Manual.

Unfortunately, these manuals tend to leave a lot of questions unanswered.  My
group is very interested in obtaining detailed technical specifications (source
code is preferred and MOST appreciated!) on the following aspects of the 3B2:

    o  the boot sequence.  The 3B2 Technical Reference Manual only shows a
       "flowchart" diagram and is nowhere near the level of detail my group
       requires. 

    o  device drivers.  None of the manuals we have describe device drivers.
       AT&T has discontinued their 3B2 Device Driver manual, and as far as we
       know, has not published a replacement.

    o  distributed operating systems.  Except for UNIX, we know of no other
       operating system which runs on the 3B2 architecture.  We are most
       interested in communicating with anyone who has succesfully implemented
       an operating system on the 3B2 architecture with whom we can trade
       experiences and suggestions.

Please send your comments, suggestions and source code (!) to the one of the
university addresses below.  We are willing to negotiate licence agreements to
protect propriatary and confidential information.  If requested, I will post a
followup status report to the newsgroup.

Thanks in advance for your assistance.

* WE is a trademark of AT&T.

Jeff E. Nelson
--------------
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
INTERNET:  jen at vtcs1.cs.vt.edu
BITNET:    jen at vtcs1.bitnet
(Please send your responses to one of the ABOVE addresses)

Digital Equipment Corporation
INTERNET:  jnelson%tle.dec at decwrl.dec.com
(Please do NOT send responses to this address)

Affiliations given for identification purposes only.  Opinions expressed herein
do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and
State University nor Digital Equipment Corporation.