Re: Idea: Multitasking graphical OS for the GS

[Eric Rucker <bhtooefr@gmail.com>]

On Jan 4, 12:48 am, Michael Black <et...@ncf.ca> wrote:
> On Sat, 3 Jan 2009, David Schmenk wrote:
> > Rebecca Bettencourt wrote:
> >> On 2009-01-03 20:01:07 -0800, David Schmenk <dschm...@YUCH.gmail.com> said:
>
> >>> mdj wrote:
> >>>> On Jan 3, 3:52 pm, David Schmenk <dschm...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
> >>>>> Another important piece to consider is the development environment.
> >>>>> Writing a core multitasking kernel isn't particularly difficult, but
> >>>>> having tools such as compilers and debuggers is a large part of the
> >>>>> project - sometimes larger than the kernel itself. If you want to make
> >>>>> it open source, you'll want to find a tool suite that can be made easily
> >>>>> available.  Do you want to self-host or do you want to cross-compile?
> >>>>> Determination of the tools might even help dictate the design and
> >>>>> complexity of the kernel.
>
> >>>> The reliance on a commercial tool chain has always been an impediment
> >>>> to IIgs development... Well, that plus the 5 manuals you'll need to
> >>>> buy. I guess there's Merlin 16, but a non-Unixy toolchain just seems
> >>>> 'wrong' nowadays
>
> >>>> Matt
>
> >>> So who is going to add 65816 support to gcc ;-)
>
> >> Found it:http://oric.free.fr/COMPILERS/gcc6502.src.tgz:)
>
> > Too funny.  I didn't even bother doing a Google search thinking "nobody would
> > do such a thing."  It isn't a complete solution, but possibly a start for a
> > 65816 port, possibly using ca65 (from cc65) as the backend.
>
> > Dave...
>
> But I would have expected it.  GCC is designed to be easily adaptable,
> unlike all the previous compilers that were written specifically for
> a specific CPU.  It's used all the time for development work, it's
> easier to adapt it to a new CPU than start from scratch.
>
> Since I know GCC has been adapted to such "oddball" CPUs like the 6809
> (it's not oddball, but had a relatively brief life coming in at the end of
> the 8bit CPUs and after 16bit CPUs had arrived, and it never sold as well
> as other 8bit CPUs, no matter how much better it was) I'd expect someone
> already would have fixed it for the 65816.  One needed tools for
> that CPU, and since it was even more an "oddball" than the 6809, the
> tools were likely scarcer.
>
>    Michael

There's also the Amsterdam Compiler Kit, which also supports adding
your own backends (I was looking it up, because it's the main compiler
for the versions of Minix I was looking at.)

It does have a 6502 backend, but apparently it's very poor.