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 autolearn=unavailable autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Path: border1.nntp.dca3.giganews.com!border3.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!usenet.blueworldhosting.com!feeder02.blueworldhosting.com!news.swapon.de!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Simon Clubley Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Point a beginner in the right direction? Cheap bare-board to run with a RTOS for running ADA Date: Tue, 9 Jul 2013 11:53:23 +0000 (UTC) Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Message-ID: References: <8a3093bb-90b3-4081-9b0b-dfde5aa6b851@googlegroups.com> <993despcuk1d.1ifczvyo501px.dlg@40tude.net> <51da9a80$0$6561$9b4e6d93@newsspool4.arcor-online.net> <1lfymwgas7bnf$.kh3wyk2tncb0.dlg@40tude.net> Injection-Date: Tue, 9 Jul 2013 11:53:23 +0000 (UTC) Injection-Info: mx05.eternal-september.org; posting-host="3a7522c45acd2a6c162b080668fa4020"; logging-data="18228"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1/GzzFFRqhMzlJsWYU82C7818xxScMTXl0=" User-Agent: slrn/0.9.8.1 (VMS/Multinet) Cancel-Lock: sha1:rvWVDCb4tLbXSfu0/q1loxsTsdM= X-Original-Bytes: 4797 Xref: number.nntp.dca.giganews.com comp.lang.ada:182374 Date: 2013-07-09T11:53:23+00:00 List-Id: On 2013-07-08, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote: > On Mon, 8 Jul 2013 17:23:06 +0000 (UTC), Simon Clubley wrote: >>>> 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. > > No. You would sell your tool chain and re-sell the hardware. > Dmitry, the whole reason behind this discussion is the desire to get Ada running on existing hardware available from a variety of sources. BTW, not even, say, RedHat sells hardware; they don't even really sell RHEL itself but sell support for it. If you want RHEL for free, you can get it in the form of Centos or Scientific Linux. I mention RHEL because the products I mentioned are available with similar license conditions to those packages found in RHEL. >> Besides, that's only viable when you can use RTEMS instead of running on >> the bare metal. > > You said customers need no OS. Why do you expect anybody would do something > you consider not viable? > You have completely misunderstood. RTEMS comes into this because of it's existing support for Ada and the ability of RTEMS to run on a number of platforms. If you can run RTEMS on your chosen platform (including writing a BSP if required) then great, you can have Ada. But there are many platforms on which RTEMS will either not run or for which it's not appropriate for the job at hand. In that case, you are coding for bare metal and then face the Ada availability issues which we are discussing. >> Even when you use RTEMS, the end user still has to supply >> a BSP if their board is not already supported. > > You said it would be simple. You want customers writing a BSP for YOUR > board? > Huh? Where did I say anything about creating a specific board and selling that ? What is needed is to create a Ada compiler which will run in bare metal mode on a number of specific architectures (ARM and MIPS would be my personal initial preferences). People can then use the compiler to write code which runs on their specific board of interest. This is exactly what happens in the C world when writing bare metal code. I use the same physical GCC cross compiler for ARM C projects and it produces code which can run on all the ARM boards I have used. What you need to then add in are the libraries (and linker scripts) which support the hardware on each specific board. The board or MCU specific hardware support is a separate problem from the bare metal compiler which will generate code for the architecture as a whole. In the Ada world, we still need a finished equivalent of the first part; the cross compiler which generates code for running on the architecture in bare metal mode. Simon. -- Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world