N64 in mainline kernel
"I'm all for diversity in platforms, but does N64 support really belong in the mainline kernel?"
N64 is effectively an SGI in a console. MIPS CPU, Reality Engine, etc. I think you'll find rather than having a large amount of new code written just to support N64, that the existing SGI code (already in kernel) just had some "ifdefs" and tweaks added in to also support N64. Whether MIPS-based SGI support still needs to be in kernel either is another matter, those are long in the tooth these days too.
I must agree with this being a novelty port, though. The 93mhz CPU is no big deal (obviously it's slow but you don't need much CPU power to have fun), but the 4MB RAM is very tight these days. I used a 16mhz 386 system when I started out with Linux, with 4MB RAM (and later with 8MB), and it sucked, not due to the CPU power but the low amount of RAM. Late 1980s-era UNIX systems had 4MB base and preferably 8MB or more. So mid 1990s with 4MB was command-line only (I could start X and run xclock and xterm but that was about it for X software without running out of RAM... I did have a few fun SVGAlib games though like a nice asteroids game and such.) Slackware back then did not use Unicode (I don't know if any Linux distro did), adding Unicode does make current command line software a tad bigger than back then. I recall on my 40MB HD I started out with, having to set 4MB of it for swap so I wouldn't run out of RAM.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
