Re: Ada and Hardware

[Ted Dennison<dennison@telepath.com>]

In article <G9xK6.4318$577.867642@news2-win.server.ntlworld.com>, chris.danx
says...
>
>I know how to do it in C.  Use the biosdisk function!  Which is incredibly

Well, then the way to do it in Ada is *also* to use the biosdisk function, or to
write something that does what it does. Ada isn't *that* different from C.

>unsafe but is the only way i know of doing this.  I don't know how to do it in
>Ada without binding to C, but i want to avoid this if i can.

There's nothing particularly wrong with binding to an OS utility just because it
uses the C parameter passing interface. Now *writing* something new in C then
linking to it from Ada might be a bit silly, but that's not what you are talking
about, is it?

>I don't see how it isn't an Ada question. Ada supports systems programming, 
True, but so do lots of other languages. If you wanted to find out how to write
your own PC boot manager, that's a system programming question too. But there's
nothing particularly *Ada* about what you have to do to accomplish this, and
this is not the newsgroup that is full of people who are experts in writing PC
boot managers.

This is akin to calling Honda and asking "How do I do a bootlegger turn with my
Honda Accord?", when in fact you don't know how to perform a bootlegger turn
with *any* car. You may luck out and get someone who knows and can tell you, but
its not the best place to ask, and doesn't really change too much just because
you bought a Honda. 

Now if you called Honda and asked, "I'd like to perform bootlegger turns, but
I'm not sure the best way to it in my Accord becuse it uses a pedal for a foot
brake and the catch is on the shifter, which makes it tough because...", that'd
be a different matter.

---
T.E.D.    homepage   - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html
          home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com