I've been getting a few emails wanting/offering help with ELKSibo (i.e. on
the Psion Series 3). These have basically prompted me to get on with doing
some more. I had a play last night and have a few questions/ideas to throw
at the group - please bear with me.
1). I have modified the /arch/psion tree to refer to the /arch/i86 tree
where there are not changes. This is easy for whole directories
/arch/i86/lib, but more difficult for thing like /arch/psion/kernel which
has a mix of new and old.
I tried just referring to the files as ../../i86/kernel/signal.c but the
problem came when generating dependencies as the '.c' weren't local to the
makefile. At present I have used symbolic links to the files to overcome
this.
Any suggestions, as I believe sym-links are a no no..?
(Al I'll send you a copy directly in the next couple of days....)
2). Loader. Currently the psion stuff builds the whole kernel into an a.out,
which is then converted to psion '.img' and copied across. This is run as an
application, it then hi-jacks the processor, relocates and voila you're
running Elks. This means the 'loader' part of the code is always resident
and occupying space within the kernel code segment. I've been thinking
around how to remove it and loader the minimum. Again any suggestions?
3). The fonts are also currently located in the kernel (data I think). I
would like to remove them but need something to load them onto the
machine......Does 'a.out' or Psion '.img' support extra segments?
4). A number of people who have contacted me don't have SSD's (external
storage). The problem is that there is no way to get a minix/elks file
system image into the machine before booting (until 'boot from network' is
going ;-) ).
My (theoretical) solution 2, 3 & 4 is to write a very simple loader
application that will receive a hex file via the serial port and write it
directly to memory. Each line would either start with a numerical address or
an execute key word and then address. It would blindly load memory as
instructed and then jump to the start of kernel code.
I'm open to suggestion, directly or to the list.
Simon Wood
Hardware Engineer
Pace Micro Technology plc
Victoria Road, Saltaire, Shipley
West Yorkshire, BD18 3LF
Tel : +44(0)1274 532000 Fax: +44(0)1274 532029
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