Re: Point a beginner in the right direction? Cheap bare-board to run with a RTOS for running ADA

[Simon Clubley <clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP>]

On 2013-07-08, Dmitry A. Kazakov <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> wrote:
> On Mon, 8 Jul 2013 12:56:44 +0000 (UTC), Simon Clubley wrote:
>
>> Start here:
>> 
>> https://www.olimex.com/Products/
>> 
>> When people come to comp.lang.ada and talk about wanting to learn Ada and
>> get it running in a bare metal environment, then quite often they are
>> talking about these types of boards, not the safety critical ones with
>> a price tag to match.
>
> The page says the board comes with Linux...
>

Dmitry, are you trying to be deliberately awkward ?

The idea behind pointing you to the index page was to enable you to
explore a world which you clearly do not even realise exists.

Yes, some of the high end Olimex boards can run Linux, but many of the
other boards listed at the Olimex site simply cannot.

However, to help you out a bit more, here are some specific examples
out of the many available:

https://www.olimex.com/Products/Duino/PIC32/PIC32-PINGUINO-MICRO/
(MIPS core, 256K flash, 32K RAM)

https://www.olimex.com/Products/ARM/Atmel/SAM3-H256/
(ARM Cortex M3, 256K flash, 48K RAM)

https://www.olimex.com/Products/ARM/ST/STM32-E407/
(ARM Cortex M4, 1MB flash, 192K RAM)

These boards would not be produced unless there was a viable market for
them; Olimex, like other vendors are in business to make money.

>> 
>> There's nothing to stop a end user programmer writing their own BSP; this
>> appears to be a common capability for RTOS environments. I've written 2-3
>> BSPs for RTEMS over the years.
>
> Fine. Why don't you bundle it with GNAT and GPS and resell the package to
> those crowds of hobbyist longing for it?
>  

With those specific products, what you would be selling would be support
and that's something which needs to be supplied by a existing vendor
using their existing infrastructure.

Besides, that's only viable when you can use RTEMS instead of running on
the bare metal. Even when you use RTEMS, the end user still has to supply
a BSP if their board is not already supported.

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world