Re: Ada Microkernel?

["Jeff Creem" <jeff@thecreems.com>]

Wow..Sounds pretty cool. If you had the time I think a short article at
www.adapower.com
would be nice.

"DuckE" <nospam_steved94@home.com> wrote in message
news:RJfV6.153185$p33.3219334@news1.sttls1.wa.home.com...
> "chris.danx" <chris.danx@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
> news:nYaV6.41193$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]
>
>