Re: Ada for the next bare metal project?

["Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de>]

On Mon, 16 Feb 2015 08:40:43 -0800 (PST), droiddermo@gmail.com wrote:

> I'm going to implement a new project, that needs to run
> without operating system on bare metal x86 and x64 processors.

How could it "need" this? It is not a 8-bit microcontroller... It is big,
expensive needs a lot of things around it to be any usable. From that I
don't see why and how it needs to be without OS, depending on what you
understand under OS. Does MS-DOS count?

> And I'm thinking about using Ada instead of C.

Sure

> First of all what compiler should I
> use (free one)?

GNAT. However for x86 there are many other Ada compilers.

> Is it easy to use Ada without runtime (that depends on
> operating system api)?

1. Ada does not use any OS API (not directly).

2. Practically no language (a reasonable subset), Ada included, works
without some run-time.

> What language features will I miss?

Depends on how much of the run-time you are going to throw away and on the
motherboard. Almost everything, in this case, probably.

> Is there a ready to use bare metal RTS,
> or I need to build my own?

There is a great number of various OSes for x86. If you have much time and
money, you could take VxWorks. Otherwise, Debian Linux is just fine.

Even Windows XP would be OK, if you have some licenses left...

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de