Re: Help! (Ada/Integrity/PEG)

["TAMS Team" <tamsteam@rolls-royce-rps.demon.co.uk>]

Thanks for your reply.

We currently have a system which contains a processor card that sends serial
data (RS100 protocol) to a remote display panel, which draws all relevant
screen layouts and softkeys.  The display panel handles softkey inputs, and
transmits the key touches back to the processor card via the serial port
(again, formatted to RS100 protocol).

What we're starting at the moment is work to replace the display panel
(mainly due to obsolescence problems).  However, as the processor card will
not change in the system, all inputs/outputs to the panel must also be
unchanged, and the processor must see the new panel as the same black box.
To achieve this, we're going to be writing the software that actually runs
in the new panel - this will handle interpreting incoming RS100 data from
the system's processor, drawing the screen displays, handling softkey input,
returning key touch data to RS100 protocol, and additional functionality
such as operator aids and a help system.

The main application for the display panel software will be written using
Ada 95 (easiest to justify, due to the nature of the application!).  We have
already got AdaMULTI/Integrity for the main development, but have also
chosen PEG to handle all the GUI bits and bobs.  So basically everything we
can do in Ada, we will do, with the exception of the GUI, which will be
achieved using PEG/C++.  What we're not sure about is how to get the main
Ada task to talk to the PEG task!  At the moment phrases like "semaphore",
"storage pool" and even "messaging" just about make sense, but as you can
probably tell, we're just at the bottom of our learning curve!

We look forward to your guidance (and appreciate your tolerance!)...!!!

Cheers & Merry Xmas!


"Mr. Caffiene" <nospam@attbi.com> wrote in message
news:20011221103954.4cd90f91.nospam@attbi.com...
> On Fri, 21 Dec 2001 15:31:10 -0000
> "TAMS Team" <tamsteam@rolls-royce-rps.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > We're just about to start our project using Integrity/AdaMulti to code
the
> > main part of the application, with PEG as our GUI designer.  The target
> > hardware will be a Radstone PPC4 board.  The (Ada) application will
decode
> > serial data coming from a remote processor to generate the screen
layouts
> > and softkeys (and changes to their properties, e.g. text contents), and
> > encode serial data to send back to the remote processor which will
> > essentially only contain information about softkey presses and status
flags
> > from the screen hardware.  All the PEG task is required to do is to
display
> > the appropriate windows or softkeys.
> >
> > Our first hurdle to overcome is how to get the main application task
talking
> > to the GUI task.  We're not quite sure how to get started, but I think
we've
> > convinced ourselves we may have to use some form of messaging.  However,
> > we're not certain of the form of messaging - i.e. typically how do you
send
> > a message to the RTOS message queue, what form is it, and how does PEG
pull
> > it from the queue?
> >
> > Any advice (or even sample code!) greatly received!
> >
> > (Please assume we're complete novices with absolutely no experience
using
> > this combination of products, and you'll be pretty close to the truth!)
> >
> >
>
> Is the main application task coded in Ada or another language. If written
in another language, you would want to use the the standard Ada "Interfaces"
libraries to communicate with the task.(Assuming I understand what your
saying.)
> Also, rather than using messaging, you could use a storage pool controlled
by a "semaphore" of sorts, which might be much more efficient. A stack of
some sort would probably be the fastest method, but also the most
troublesome to work with.(Unless you happen to be using Forth. Heh.)
>
> A little more detail(if at all possible) on what your doing would enable
us(or at least me) to provide a little more pertinent advice.(I use to do C
coding on RTEMS, another RTOS. Thank G-d I discovered Ada. Heh.)