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From: Matthew Kennedy <q9522772@mail.connect.usq.edu.au>
Subject: Re: Low level (GNAT) Ada?
Date: 1998/01/22
Message-ID: <34C716EC.7F0D@mail.connect.usq.edu.au>#1/1
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Organization: University of Southern Queensland
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1998-01-22T00:00:00+00:00
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OK, I need to write a device driver, no worries! 

Can I write it with GNAT? I know these things are usually written in
assembler but I'm not really wanting anything that special. Afterall
it's only talking to a logger and another PC terminal.

What about those DLL files in the system directory. I know there is a
DLL for Visual C/Basic that is specifically for serial communications.
How does one reference a DLL entry into a GNAT Ada program?

By the way, I'd rather not use DOS.

Many thanks,

Matt

Jerry van Dijk wrote:
> 
> In article <34C48A74.26CA@mail.connect.usq.edu.au> q9522772@mail.connect.usq.edu.au writes:
> 
> >I'd like to be able to control some purpose-built devices on the
> >parallel and serial ports of my PC as well as bus cards.
> 
> Not unusual...
> 
> > I have searched
> >hard through the documentation for a library that provides
> >parallel/serial interfaces but they just don't exist. I haven't even
> >found basic C-like outb/inb functions.
> 
> That is correct, although this has nothing to do with Ada or GNAT.
> To access devices in NT your code has to run at ring 0, which means
> you need a device driver for them.
> 
> Note that you can open I/O devices as files.
> 
> >Everybody keeps saying that Ada is also great for system and low level
> >programming but it doesn't look like it from the Windows GNAT point of
> >view.
> 
> Yes, Ada is very good at low-level programming, No, NT does not allow
> you to do so in a user program. Neither can you do this in C.
> 
> Dare I say it... Yep: the easiest way to do this sort of programming
> is to use a DOS compiler.

-- 
Matthew Kennedy
Student of Electrical and Electronics Engineering
University of Southern Queensland, Australia
  "When will you realise you're already there?" 
      - Marilyn Manson