Re: ADA os talk

[Serge Robyns <serge.robyns@rc-s.be>]

B.Gaffney wrote:

> "Marin David Condic" <dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[acm.org> wrote in
> message news:<9me5cm$3nv$1@nh.pace.co.uk>...
>> I'd still push for something that was very minimal and just capable of
>> booting & getting at least one minimal app up and running. If the kernel
>> could boot and start scheduling an Ada app, you could add the device
>> drivers, the GUI the file system, the OS calls, etc. etc. etc. as you
>> went along. Get it that far, and then there's enough there to start the
>> synergy needed to move it along.
>> 
> Marin,  I think you'd be interested in at least one part of the AdaOS
> project (besides the high-level architectural discussions, etc. :-).
> One of the members created a 'minimal' bootable floppy image back in
> January.  It's not even up the the level you describe, and I don't
> know that anything has been done on it since (possibly because there's
> no one there showing interest in what the next small step should be).
> I've downloaded the sources, but have yet to get to looking into it.
> 
>           --Brian

I was the guy who wrote that stuff.  It didn't progess anymore as the drive 
inside the AdaOS community was close to nil.  Only a few people had 
comments on it, but nobody wanted to take that base of work as a starting 
point.  Also I didn't make much time available for it and I also managed to 
wiped out my harddisk.  Because all of that I joined Federic Boyer on his 
ADX project (http://fr.groups.yahoo.com/group/projet-adx/).

For your information, the code only boots an ada executable with a mini vga 
and keyboard driver full of bugs.  But I needed it to see how to get from 
gnat 32bit code into a bootable kernel, play with interrupts and "see" 
something beeing done by the code (output to the vga console).

Resently I grasped old sources back together (I had to pull my own sources 
back from the internet).  Currently I'm trying to have plex86 back working. 
This allows me to test the kernel without need to reboot my system or use a 
secondary PC.  Also in case of crashes plex gave me a good view on the 
content of the system at the time of the crash.

It is not because I'm working on ADX I'm not not reading the AdaOS stuff.  
Some people are seriously trying to bring back life into the project.  I'm 
still afraid that my goals and the goals set by the people in AdaOS are 
somewhat divergent.  But if this would be the case, I still hope for cross 
exchange between the two projects.  But my strong belief is that AdaOS need 
some people which want to have their hands dirty and get into plumbing the 
OS, I've the impression the list is more filled with watchers on one side 
and great dreamers on the other side.  Also the requent absence of the 
project leader has been a nuisance for the project.

If people want to play with that code they can get it from 
http://web.wanadoo.be/rc.s/ .

Cheers,

Serge Robyns