Re: Ada Operating System

[James Ross <rem.jr@rem.webross.com>]

On Tue, 5 Mar 2002 09:28:30 -0500, "Marin David Condic"
<dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[acm.org> wrote:

>If it were my gig, I'd look to getting some kind of bootable kernel going by
>utilizing the Gnat compiler (just because its there and readily accessible
>to the hobbyist). If it could boot off a floppy and do a little basic
>scheduling & I/O so that folks could start playing with it, then it would
>likely spark interest.

Even this alone is a fairly tall order to build from scratch, let
alone everything else that is envisioned for AdaOS on their site.
Using GNAT is definitely the way to go but it does introduce a
somewhat "chicken and the egg" problem with the build / link / execute
process;  I believe there are issues with the GNAT runtime as well as
getting a executable image as these are platform dependent.  (I might
be wrong about this!) 

>Of course, my bias would be to provide good realtime support for the
>scheduler because I think that's an unaddressed (or insufficiently
>addressed) niche by both Windows & Linux. If it could run on a PC and
>provide the possibility of running at least one realtime process, it would
>have something you don't get elsewhere. That's product distinction! :-)
>
>MDC

Yes, the real lure is to end up with an OS on par with Linux / Windows
/ Mac but somehow better.  And to have hard real-time functionality
built is just one thing on the path to being better.  

I would suggest (or if it were my gig, as you say!) to take the
following pieces of GPL'd code: The Linux kernel, one of the Linux
real-time extensions, the GNU tools and GNAT and then design the AdaOS
API's (kernel, etc..) by creating a, I believe it is called a "thick
binding" to the underlying Linux OS. Then it would be possible to
begin writing tools and such for the new OS.  Then slowly replace the
Linux kernel with a new and improved (?) Ada kernel.

James Ross