PC as bare machine?

PC as bare machine?

[Ada2001]

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)?

F. Britt Snodgrass (ada2001@my-deja.com)


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Re: PC as bare machine?

[tmoran]

>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
  How about loading your program from disk using the services of
MSDOS, then turn off the clock interrupt, grab the interrupt vectors,
and proceed to ignore DOS and treat it as a bare machine.  As
has been pointed out, your Ada run-time better not assume there's
an OS.

Re: PC as bare machine?

[Robert Dewar]

In article <7phsdr$haq$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
  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.


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Re: PC as bare machine?

[Jerry Petrey]

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
=====================================================================

Re: PC as bare machine?

[Marin David Condic]

Ada2001 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)?

While I don't know the answer to that specific question, I'll suggest a
couple of alternatives: One is to buy an Intel SBC card which should give
you some means of loading OS-free code and may even give you some help with
visibility into its execution. Another alternative is a software simulation
of the chip in question. I realize that this is spending money when you
already have a PC on your desk, but it may not be that bad and might do a
better job than trying to force a PC to boot with your embedded code.

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Real Time & Embedded Systems, Propulsion Systems Analysis
United Technologies, Pratt & Whitney, Large Military Engines
M/S 731-95, P.O.B. 109600, West Palm Beach, FL, 33410-9600
***To reply, remove "bogon" from the domain name.***

Visit my web page at: http://www.mcondic.com/

Re: PC as bare machine?

[Ted Dennison]

In article <7phsdr$haq$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
  Ada2001 <ada2001@my-deja.com> wrote:

> 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)?

I have a textbook for an OS class I took a couple of years back that
contains complete source code for a small Unix-like PC-based OS. Chapter
13 goes into detail about the bootstrap process, with C code.

The name of the book is "Operating System Design Volume I, The XINU
Approach (PC Edition)" by Douglas Comer and Timothy Fossum.

However, if you took this approach, you'd better have compiled your code
with a compiler that doesn't look to any OS services to implement the
Ada runtime.
--
T.E.D.


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Re: PC as bare machine?

[William Thomas]

Ada2001 <ada2001@my-deja.com> wrote in article
<7phsdr$haq$1@nnrp1.deja.com>...

> Has anyone done this or know of any papers
> describing how to boot a PC with a dedicated program (no operating
> system)?
> 

Check out the DDC compiler company they have an Ada 83 compiler targeted to
"Bare PCs".

Re: PC as bare machine?

[jerry]

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)?

In my experience, a 'bare board' really covers many variants, from really
bare boards, to boards with a bios and possibly an ROM'ed (DR)-DOS, to
boards with simple propriety ROM'ed monitors.

I sure hope your 'bare-board' includes a DOS ROM, as that would solve a
lot of 'start-up' problems. Otherwise, take a look at the sources of the
FreeDos project. Or Caldera's, if the source license is appropriate for
your use.

Jerry.

-- 
-- Jerry van Dijk  | email: jdijk@acm.org 
-- Team Ada        | web:   http://stad.dsl.nl/~jvandyk
-- Leiden, Holland | Paris, France