Re: Operating System in Ada

[Jonathan Guthrie <jguthrie@weck.brokersys.com>]

Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. <rleif@RLEIF.COM> wrote:
> The equivalent of an Ada operating system has already be done twice.

> Firstly, there was the BIIN project, which was in Ada.

<snippage>

> The second example is from the laboratory of N. Wirth, the grandfather of
> Ada '83 (Great-grandfather of Ada '95). Wirth et al. at ETH Z?rich have
> already created an operating system in Oberon.

Oberon is written in Oberon, not Ada.  Also, the Oberon system was
originally part of the language's run time system.  This turned out to be
an incredibly bad idea, so they created a standalone language system.
However, the Oberon system MUST be programmed in---wait for it---Oberon.
You CAN NOT program an Oberon system in Ada, so Oberon has nothing to do
with Ada.  So, Oberon is as much an example of an "equivalent of an Ada
operating system" as MS-DOS was.

Now, it has been pointed out that implementing an operating system in Ada
is kind of pointless if all you're trying to do is show that it can be
done.  On the other hand, if you like Ada and you've got some ideas for
how an OS should be done, then go for it.  (If you're looking for some
ideas, I've got some API descriptions kicking around that I can share
although I believe the Ada system takes care of essentially everything
that I've designed.)

Something you'll want to remember:  you're going to want to provide easy
support for languages other than Ada.  That means that you're going to
need C bindings for the CP (Control Program---MainframeSpeak for "kernel",
sort of) API at the very least.  (It would help if porting Unix or Win32 C
sources to this system is a simple matter of a recompile and relink.)  
That helps to prevent your system from becoming a mere curiousity.

Then, for that system to become popular, all you need is a pile of luck.
-- 
Jonathan Guthrie (jguthrie@brokersys.com)
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