Re: You guys are NUTS !

[Frank Carney <frankc@cyberhighway.net>]

Phoenyx wrote:

> Jeff Blakeney wrote:
>
>   <SNIP>
>
> > It would even be possible to take a Pentium or some other machine and
> > write boot code that would load in the 65816 emulator core and then
> > boot GS/OS just like a IIgs.  Mind you, this is an extreme
> > oversimplification of the process as there are lots of other things
> > to deal with.  :-)
>
> This might be a better method. There are so many possibilities.
>
> >
> > I have lots of ideas but I'm still not in a position monetarily or
> > time wise to start working on something this big.
>
> This would not be a single person project. It will require a team of
> dedicated GS users and quite a lot of planning.
>
> Since the hardware would be growing, there would also have to be a
> programming team.
>
> Sadly, I'm not the greatest organizer and like you I am limited on
> time.
>
> Phoenyx

I do like the idea of booting on a Pentium machine then running GS/OS, but
why write any custom boot code?  You could boot to a another OS that is
scaled down to a few megabytes then boot GS/OS.  You take advantage of
existing tools and stability is the underlying OS.  One good example would
be RTLinux.  With RTLinux the Linux OS itself becomes a process that can
be completely ignored if it was desired.  Then the code to run the GS
emulator would have full control of the machine without the problems of
the process getting pre-empted by an OS process.  Also, custom hardware
could be accessed this way, but it may have to go through Linux for that,
I am not sure.  Anyway, you have a wealth of tools and programmers who are
experienced with embedded programming to help tackle any issues.  Another
thing to keep is mind is there is a program called userfs that makes for
very simplified development of file systems.  This may be a good way to
get an 800K drive to work on a PC.