porting BSD:

This, the first article, is the first published mention of 386BSD. By this time, the project had been operational for 18 months, and William Jolitz was at Berkeley working on the Net/2 release.
In this installment, we discussed the beginning of our project and the initial framework that guided our efforts, in particular, the development of the 386BSD specification.

We didn't just load and debug the kernel; we chose to prove portions first. That way we learned the dependances first, and could try alternatives seperately. Later we used the same means to revise them later.

We describe the need and use of a cross-support environment to create 386 code from a non-386 machine, so as to create the initial binarys before our port can generate them.

We build the first instance of the root filesystem - before any operational system is present on the 386 to build one. Part of the bootstrapping cycle of getting up the first running system on a new architecture.

Understanding the boundary between research and development with BSD, and where a balance between commercial efforts can be struck.