diff --git a/share/man/man9/Makefile b/share/man/man9/Makefile
index bbfe7df712af..1508aad7435a 100644
--- a/share/man/man9/Makefile
+++ b/share/man/man9/Makefile
@@ -1,9 +1,9 @@
-#	$Id: Makefile,v 1.24 1997/03/22 20:06:58 mpp Exp $
+#	$Id: Makefile,v 1.25 1997/03/22 20:59:15 mpp Exp $
 
 MAN9=	MD5.9 at_shutdown.9 at_fork.9 at_exit.9 boot.9 cd.9 copy.9 \
 	devfs_add_devswf.9 \
 	devfs_link.9 fetch.9 ifnet.9 intro.9 inittodr.9 mi_switch.9 \
-	panic.9 psignal.9 \
+	panic.9 physio.9 psignal.9 \
 	resettodr.9 rtalloc.9 rtentry.9 scsiconf.9 sd.9 sleep.9 spl.9 st.9 \
 	store.9 style.9 time.9 timeout.9 uio.9 \
 	vnode.9 vget.9 vput.9 vref.9 vrele.9 VOP_ABORTOP.9 VOP_ACCESS.9 \
diff --git a/share/man/man9/physio.9 b/share/man/man9/physio.9
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..0a633792108d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/share/man/man9/physio.9
@@ -0,0 +1,137 @@
+.\"	$NetBSD: physio.9,v 1.2 1996/11/11 00:05:12 lukem Exp $
+.\"
+.\" Copyright (c) 1996 The NetBSD Foundation, Inc.
+.\" All rights reserved.
+.\"
+.\" This code is derived from software contributed to The NetBSD Foundation
+.\" by Paul Kranenburg.
+.\"
+.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
+.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
+.\" are met:
+.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
+.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
+.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
+.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
+.\"    documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
+.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software
+.\"    must display the following acknowledgement:
+.\"        This product includes software developed by the NetBSD
+.\"        Foundation, Inc. and its contributors.
+.\" 4. Neither the name of The NetBSD Foundation nor the names of its
+.\"    contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived
+.\"    from this software without specific prior written permission.
+.\"
+.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE NETBSD FOUNDATION, INC. AND CONTRIBUTORS
+.\" ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED
+.\" TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
+.\" PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED.  IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE
+.\" LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR
+.\" CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF
+.\" SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS
+.\" INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN
+.\" CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE)
+.\" ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE
+.\" POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
+.\"
+.Dd June 15, 1996
+.Dt PHYSIO 9
+.Os FreeBSD
+.Sh NAME
+.Nm physio
+.Nd initiate I/O on raw devices
+.Sh SYNOPSIS
+.Ft int
+.Fo "physio"
+.Fa "(*strategy)(struct buf *)"
+.Fa "struct buf *bp"
+.Fa "dev_t dev"
+.Fa "int flags"
+.Fa "(*minphys)(struct buf *)"
+.Fa "struct uio *uio"
+.Fc
+.Sh DESCRIPTION
+The
+.Fn physio
+is a helper function typically called from character device read and write
+routines to start I/O on a user process buffer. It calls back on the
+provided
+.Fa strategy
+routine one or more times to complete the transfer described by
+.Fa uio .
+The maximum amount of data to transfer with each call to
+.Fa strategy
+is determined by the
+.Fa minphys
+routine. Since
+.Fa uio
+normally describes user space addresses,
+.Fn physio
+needs to lock the process into memory.  This is done by setting the
+.Dv P_PHYSIO
+flag on the process.
+.Fn physio
+always awaits the completion of the entire requested transfer before
+returning, unless an error condition is detected earlier. In all cases,
+the buffer passed in
+.Fa bp
+is locked (marked as
+.Dq busy )
+for the duration of the entire transfer.
+.Pp
+A break-down of the arguments follows:
+.Bl -tag -width indent
+.It Fa strategy
+The device strategy routine to call for each chunk of data to initiate
+device I/O.
+.It Fa bp
+The buffer to use with the strategy routine. The buffer flags will have
+.Dv B_BUSY ,
+and
+.Dv B_PHYS
+set when passed to the strategy routine. If
+.Dv NULL ,
+a buffer is allocated from a system pool.
+.It Fa dev
+The device number identifying the device to interact with.
+.It Fa flags
+Direction of transfer; the only valid settings are
+.Dv B_READ
+or
+.Dv B_WRITE .
+.It Fa minphys
+A device specific routine called to determine the maximum transfer size
+that the device's strategy routine can handle.
+.It Fa uio
+The description of the entire transfer as requested by the user process.
+Currently, the results of passing a
+.Fa uio
+structure with the
+.Sq uio_segflg
+set to anything other than
+.Dv UIO_USERSPACE ,
+are undefined.
+.El
+.Pp
+.Sh RETURN VALUES
+If successful
+.Fn physio
+returns 0.
+.Er EFAULT
+is returned if the address range described by
+.Fa uio
+is not accessible by the requesting process.
+.Fn physio
+will return any error resulting from calls to the device strategy routine,
+by examining the
+.Dv B_ERROR
+buffer flag and the
+.Va b_error
+field. Note that the actual transfer size may be less than requested by
+.Fa uio
+if the device signals an
+.Dq end of file
+condition.
+.Sh SEE ALSO
+.Xr read 2 ,
+.Xr write 2