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From: Xianzheng Zhou <joe@lgsolutions.com.au>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Help writing ada booting kernel
Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2007 11:59:03 +1000
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Date: 2007-07-16T11:59:03+10:00
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Hi Wiktor,
Thanks for your reply. That really helps. This is exactly the example I 
need. :)
In the example, int.S and boot.S are in assembly code. Is there a way to 
write this part in Ada?

Wiktor Moskwa wrote:
> On 15.07.2007, Xianzheng Zhou <joe@lgsolutions.com.au> wrote:
>> I'm a new to Ada and very interested in learning this language.
>> Currently, I'm trying to write a small program in ada compiled by gnat,
>>   to boot an ordinary PC, something like grub. I'm wonderring whether
>> ada can do this low-level task and how may I use the gnat progma to
>> achieve this. Please advise if you know how to do this.
> 
> Hi,
> 
> First of all if you want to experiment with writing a native program
> don't write your own bootloader, please :-) 
> GRUB multiboot specification is a good place to start if you don't 
> want to waste a lot of time fighting with weird x86 architecture.
> 
> By learning Ada this way you will miss many features that Ada run-time 
> provides (tasking, secondary stack, exceptions, standard library, etc.).
> 
> If you still want to try, I can provide a piece of code to start with.
> Some time ago I wanted to experiment with native programs, you can
> download the results - it's a small native program that starts in
> protected mode, loads GDTR, enables memory paging and prints few
> things directly to VGA memory.
> It compiles with GNAT GPL and can be tested with bochs or qemu.
> Feel free to ask if something is not clear in the code or build script.
> 
> http://hoborg.zapto.org/AdaExpOs.tgz
> 
> For something serious you can check out Marte OS: http://marte.unican.es/
>