Re: Ada Microkernel?

["DuckE" <nospam_steved94@home.com>]

"chris.danx" <chris.danx@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:nYaV6.41193$fs6.3698668@news6-win.server.ntlworld.com...
> > >Second, (again) did i get the correct distribution (it is detailed in
the
> reply
> > >text above)?  This is VERY IMPORTANT.
> >
> > 3.13p is the latest public source distribution.
>
> The problem is that there seems to be different source versions for
different
> platforms (maybe the others are patches) and i'm unsure if the source i
> downloaded is correct.  It was 3.13psrc.tgz or something similar.
>

I believe you'll find that sources for all the 3.13p distributions are
contained in the same file.  While I haven't been through the detail, from
what I can tell various files are selected for building the different target
runtimes using scripts that are run during the build.

A couple of things you may find of interest:
  There has been some indication that current GNAT sources will enter the
common GCC source tree soon.  You may want to keep tabs on the gcc mailing
list to monitor the progress.
  You can find an archive of the GCC mailing list at:
http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/

  There is a mailing list dedicated to GNAT where you'll find people who
know quite a bit about the internals.  To subscribe to gnatlist by go to the
web site:
  http://osgood.seas.gwu.edu/cgi-bin/lyris.pl  select "Special Topics" and
you'll find gnatlist.
  One of the message posted there last march reads:

    You dont actually need ecos or an RTOS at all to get gnat running on
    an embedded target. I have cobbled together a gnat i386-linux to
    m68k-coff cross using gcc2.8.1 , gnat3.11p and newlib.

    It comples and runs as expected, although you dont get Ada tasking.
    This is not a problem for me as I have written my own scheduler.

    The only major problem I had was related to the fact that newlib is
    missing some headers which gnatlib required. All of these, however
    are related to stuff you don't need in a cross environment, like
    dirent.h. I just pinched the missing files from my linux distro,
    and hey presto it compiled and worked OK ( Although with some
    broken library functions related to stuff like file io ).

    Having an RTOS is, of course, desirable - but given the size of a C
    lib, Ada lib,  plus the fact that Ada binaries are generally not small,
    you start to fill up ROM space pretty quickly on a small embedded
    target,  even without  an RTOS. Avoiding the RTOS simplifies
    things, keeps your binaries smaller, and is quite feasible for many
    applications.

    If anyone is interested in doing something similar, I'd be happy to
    help.

    Francis Valentinis
    RMIT Aerospace Engineering.

[snip]