Do we need this junk?

[M. Warner Losh]

In message: <ef10de9a0704061354j30b6a96cu328a4e6079739b0f at mail.gmail.com>
            "Nikolas Britton" <nikolas.britton at gmail.com> writes:
: On 4/6/07, Steve Kargl <sgk at troutmask.apl.washington.edu> wrote:
: > On Fri, Apr 06, 2007 at 03:25:24PM -0500, Nikolas Britton wrote:
: > > On 4/6/07, Steve Kargl <sgk at troutmask.apl.washington.edu> wrote:
: > > >On Fri, Apr 06, 2007 at 03:06:20PM -0500, Nikolas Britton wrote:
: > > >>
: > > >> I only suggested dropping PC98. Why? If you look at the PC98 page* it
: > > >> hasn't been updated since FreeBSD 4.11 and bsdstats.org shows zero
: > > >> people using it... PC98 is a  dead platform like Alpha and Alpha
: > > >> support is being dropped for FreeBSD 7, but if you look at
: > > >> bsdstats.org the Alpha platform has more users than sparc, powerpc and
: > > >> pc98 combined!!
: > > >
: > > >pc98 appears to be popular in Japan.  See
: > > >http://people.freebsd.org/~kato/pc98.html
: > > >
: > > >Alpha died because the chip maker stopped
: > > >making chips.
: > > >
: > >
: > > NEC stopped making PC98 system in 1997!!!
: >
: > That's odd.  See NEC's press release dated 23 OCT 97
: > concerning a new series of PC98-NX
: >
: > http://www.nec.co.jp/press/en/9710/2301.html
: >
: 
: "The PC-9801's last successor is the Celeron-based PC-9821Ra43 (with a
: clockspeed 433MHz), which appeared in 2000" -Wikipedia    Ok I was off
: by 3 years, but it's still been dead longer than Alpha.

Actaully, it wasn't until around 2005 that NEC stopped making
NEC-PC9821xxx machines and machine parts.  They did so to support the
installed base of these machines.  I have a PC9821Ra in my garage, as
a matter of fact (I'm only blessed with 400MHz).  It is my LAN media
server.

The PC98-NX is a wintel compatible machine that has only PC98
brand-name because it is so popular in Japan.

Up until recently, pc98 was the second most popular platform that
FreeBSD had.  I don't have recent data (the info I have is from 2003),
but suspect that it has slipped to third behind amd64.  Telling all
these long-term die-hard users, who helped to build FreeBSD popularity
in Japan to take a hike would be very damaging to the project.

Warner