Running Ada code on an SBC

Running Ada code on an SBC

[Mike Silva]

After teaching myself a bit of Ada (using the Aonix limited package) I'd
like to go the next step and run some real hardware.  I happen to have an
Ampro Pentium SBC board, so that's the obvious choice.  Anyway, my question
is what is a good Ada enviornment to run on an x86 SBC target (Windows
Host)?  I've got the additional kicker that, since I'm doing this on my own
time and money for now, it needs to be free or cheap.  Later, when I show
the boss how good it works (and you folks have convinced me of this part!)
there will be the likelyhood of buying a "full" product.

GNAT with RTEMS looks like an obvious choice, but I don't want to rule out
any other solutions.  I'd like to hear recommendations, as well as any hints
or experiences on bringing up x86 SBCs (I've done embedded, and I've done
PCs, but I've never done embedded PCs...).  Thanks a bunch...

Mike

p.s. I'm *really* looking forward to doing some serious Ada concurrency...

Re: Running Ada code on an SBC

[Ted Dennison]

In article <xTRz3.289$313.91627@news.wenet.net>,
  "Mike Silva" <mjsilva@jps.net> wrote:

> is what is a good Ada enviornment to run on an x86 SBC target (Windows
> Host)?  I've got the additional kicker that, since I'm doing this on
my own
> time and money for now, it needs to be free or cheap.  Later, when I
show

> GNAT with RTEMS looks like an obvious choice, but I don't want to rule
out

At work here we do a lot of work with full PC's and RTOS's. From my
investigations into the matter that's the only free(libre) option I
could find. Gnat has a vxWorks port, but I can't find a public version
of it, and it doesn't appear to be available for x86's. Additionally,
xvWorks itself if quite expensive (but your company may have a copy
laying around somewhere).

The only other free RTOS I have found is Cygnus' eCos. But there doesn't
seem to be a free Ada compiler for it, and it doesn't have an official
x86 port.

If you don't care about realtime performance, there are several embedded
Linux projects around. I don't know what their statuses are.

--
T.E.D.


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Re: Running Ada code on an SBC

[Joel Sherrill]

In article <xTRz3.289$313.91627@news.wenet.net>,
  "Mike Silva" <mjsilva@jps.net> wrote:
> After teaching myself a bit of Ada (using the Aonix limited package)
I'd
> like to go the next step and run some real hardware.  I happen to have
an
> Ampro Pentium SBC board, so that's the obvious choice.  Anyway, my
question
> is what is a good Ada enviornment to run on an x86 SBC target (Windows
> Host)?  I've got the additional kicker that, since I'm doing this on
my own
> time and money for now, it needs to be free or cheap.  Later, when I
show
> the boss how good it works (and you folks have convinced me of this
part!)
> there will be the likelyhood of buying a "full" product.
>
> GNAT with RTEMS looks like an obvious choice, but I don't want to rule
out
> any other solutions.  I'd like to hear recommendations, as well as any
hints
> or experiences on bringing up x86 SBCs (I've done embedded, and I've
done
> PCs, but I've never done embedded PCs...).  Thanks a bunch...

It is quite possible to use GNAT/RTEMS on this target.  There is a
very active RTEMS submitter who has an embedded i386ex target with
networking.  He has encountered few problems except for the lack of
harward floating point on the i386ex. :)

We call this BSP the pc386.  It treats a PC as an embedded target. On a
standard PC, you can boot your application from floppy or via netboot to
avoid clobbering windows or Linux.  On an embedded PC, you can arrange
to boot from Flash.  As you might expect, there is a lot of activity
centered around this BSP.

You can use numerous OSes as the host. Most people seem to Linux,
Solaris, or cygwin.

Feel free to ask questions on the RTEMS mailing list at OARcorp.com.

-joel
Joel Sherrill, Ph.D.             Director of Research & Development
joel@OARcorp.com                 On-Line Applications Research
Ask me about RTEMS: a free RTOS  Huntsville AL 35805
   Support Available             (256) 722-9985


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