Re: PC as bare machine?

[Jerry Petrey <gpetrey@hercii.mar.lmco.com>]

Robert Dewar wrote:
> 
> Ada2001 <ada2001@my-deja.com> wrote:
>> I am starting on a embedded Ada development project that will
>> ultimately run on a custom Intel CPU target board. The final target
>> hardware will not be available for a few months.  I am wondering if it is
>> possible to use a standard PC as a bare machine development platform until
>> I get the real target board.  Has anyone done this or know of any papers
>> describing how to boot a PC with a dedicated program (no
>> operating system)?
> 
> Remember that DOS is not an operating system in the normal
> sense at all, there is nothing between you and the bare board.
> Yes, there are some system services you can call, but if you
> don't call them, they do nothing but take up a bit of space.
> 
> If you really don't want to even have DOS loaded, then it is
> perfectly easy to write a program that will be boot loaded.
> The easiest thing is to get hold of an old tech ref manual
> that shows how the BIOS loads a program.
> 


This is true.  Back in the 80's when I worked for Forth, Inc., we
did this to bring up our native version of PC Forth which took over
the whole machine.

-- 
=====================================================================
=  Jerry Petrey - Consultant Software Engineer  - Member Team Ada  
=                 Lockheed Martin                 Member Team Forth
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