NetBSD version 9.3 is here, and it can run on very old systems.
The new version comes about 15 months after NetBSD 9.2 and features new and updated drivers, improved hardware support, including some recent AMD and Intel processors.
Most notably in the announcement of the new release, it states: "Support for wsfb-based X11 servers on the Commodore Amiga."
It is the indication that we are facing a very different operating system compared to the existing ones. A notable improvement in NetBSD 9.3 is the ability to run a graphical desktop on Amiga computers. To put the magnitude though it's a 2022 operating system that can run on hardware that was released in the late 1980s.
NetBSD supports eight “tier I” architectures: 32-bit, 64-bit, x86, Arm, plus MIPS, PowerPC, Sun UltraSPARC, and Xen hypervisor.
In addition to these, there are at least 49 supported “tier II” architectures, which are not as complete and not all work – although almost all are in version 9.3 except for the version for entry-level Acorn PCs with 32-bit Arm processors, which it still only exists in NetBSD 8.1.
There is also a “tier III” supported architecture for ports that are no longer supported.
It is an operating system that can run on 680×0 hardware, DEC VAX minicomputers and workstations, Sun 2, 3, but also 32-bit SPARC boxes.
In other words, it goes all the way back to the hardware released in the 1970s.
