On 12/26/07, Rudolf Marek <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi all, > > Just few comments to BIOS ROMs. Please do use C to write most of the > BIOS. Use assembly just for a trampoline to C (compile code for 16bit > code, relative to one segment?). The BIOS could be 64KB in size.IMHO the > LGPLed BIOS from bochs/qemu could be used to get full implementation of > VGA, rest could be added to this existing code base.
Can we get GCC to emit code that's fixed to a certain address or all PC-relative so that we can easily drop it into the PROM? Maybe we can get it to emit assembly code that we combine with the trampoline. > Assembly is nice, but for smaller projects. The maintainability of code will > suffer a lot when only in assembly. I can help with the BIOS development as I > stated last year or so, but I will need to find some time for that. Anyway I > wrote this year LinuxBIOS support for my chipset/motherboard so perhaps I'm > qualified to help ;) Sounds like it. :) BTW, speaking of the LGPL, it's important that we ultimately have a clean-roomed version that we can dual-license. Either that, or we need appropriate permission from the original authors. Otherwise, this will seriously hamper our ability to bundle it with OGD1 for commercial use. To a limited extent, we have to function as a business, and so we have to be able to relicense code. As much as we like the LGPL, most commercial entities simply will not accept it. This will be the difference between us being able to write a contract or not, and we need those contracts to fund open hardware development. Actually, for something like the BIOS, either dual-license or MIT will satisfy what I believe to be what's necessary. -- Timothy Normand Miller http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/~millerti Open Graphics Project _______________________________________________ Open-graphics mailing list [email protected] http://lists.duskglow.com/mailman/listinfo/open-graphics List service provided by Duskglow Consulting, LLC (www.duskglow.com)
