From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,LOTS_OF_MONEY autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,11d39408e66ea211 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-03-20 12:52:18 PST Path: supernews.google.com!sn-xit-03!supernews.com!newsfeed.wirehub.nl!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.slurp.net!not-for-mail Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: GNAT Question References: <7wLt6.19470$bL.1855137@news6-win.server.ntlworld.com> Organization: Multimedia X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test72 (19 April 1999) From: cts@kampong.aedinc.net ((null)) Message-ID: Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 20:49:14 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 208.4.231.188 X-Trace: newsfeed.slurp.net 985121354 208.4.231.188 (Tue, 20 Mar 2001 14:49:14 CDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 14:49:14 CDT Xref: supernews.google.com comp.lang.ada:5925 Date: 2001-03-20T20:49:14+00:00 List-Id: In article <7wLt6.19470$bL.1855137@news6-win.server.ntlworld.com>, chris.danx wrote: >Hi, > Does anyone know if i can use GNAT to do OS work? Yes. Since you'll be working underneath the application/kernel boundary you won't be able to use any parts of the gnats's built-in runtime libraries that depend on the underlying OS. You can either write your own code to implement those parts of the runtime, or do without. If you choose to do without (a reasonable choice for many situations) you'll want to use 'pragma No_Run_Time'. Look in the "GNAT User's Manual". >Currently just starting work on it and we're >implementing virtual FS support as a file on disk. We're doing it in C via >DJGPP but i hate C, BTW, If I were you, I'd use something other than DOS to do the development work on. Compiling in Unix and testing on a PC simulator (such as Bochs) should help things go a lot smoother >The info seems to suggest that you can't use >GNAT, and the development of an Ada compiler for this kinda thing is needed. Actually the reason they are building a compiler from scratch is because the founder of that project (Nick Roberts) wants to write an Ada compiler. The reason he wants to write an operating system is because he doesn't think any existing operating system nicely supports Ada compilers. In other words, he is creating the operating system to support the compiler; his compiler is not needed to write an operating system. Just curious, does anyone out there know about how many man-years it might take to write an Ada compiler? How long did it take for gnat? -- ======================================================================= Life is short. | Craig Spannring Bike hard, ski fast. | cts@internetcds.com --------------------------------+------------------------------------