====== FreeBSD on the Mainframe ======
===== The pet ^H^H^HFrankenstein project =====

Contact: BjoernZeeb

//At the moment this is a placeholder page which needs a lot more details over time, original names, references, ... some which is beyond my knowledge//

In the early 2000s there was a s390 projects branch in the %%FreeBSD%% Perforce repository ((The Perforce repository has since gone offline.)).
The s390 (32bit) port made on a good day made it to single-user and beyond.
A s390x (64bit) port was in progress though I don't know its last state.

During the %%FreeBSD%% 5 times, BjoernZeeb started to update the perforce repo to the latest %%FreeBSD%%.
Back then the emulators/hercules port was used for testing.

Over the years there were multiple efforts to revive the port, often stalled again due to missing access to a proper development environment or access to hardware where %%FreeBSD%% could be IPLed, support, or funding.

One of the lasts attempts was done in early 2017 ([[https://www.freebsd.org/news/status/report-2017-01-2017-03.html#FreeBSD/s390x-Attempt-III|status report]]).

In 2019 interest in the project was revived and we are currently in the progress of updating the previous efforts to %%FreeBSD%% HEAD (%%FreeBSD%% 13).
On 2019-08-07 the "s390x-binutils child port" ((svnweb.freebsd.org/ports/head/devel/s390x-binutils)) from [[https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=215939|PR 215939]] was committed as a first step to provide a development platform.

==== Footnotes ====