I've been looking into returning to SharpOS, somewhat out of boredom with
other pursuits, and also due to intrigue to a new possible pursuit. I'm
wondering what it would take to simultaneously support SharpOS on the
Nintendo DS as we develop it for PC.
The homebrew niche for the Nintendo DS is practically exploding, but good
software is still quite a ways off. There *is* Linux for the DS, but no GUI,
as the DS has very little RAM and no MMU. Also, no GCC. Therefore, no cute
Mono GUI apps are even remotely feasible. So I'm doing some research into
the ARM architecture, and the DS specifically. I think it would be cool to
try and write a DS-specific ARM backend to the AOT.
There are other issues, like no keyboard. And emulating an MMU (for paging
purposes, if nothing else) will be slow. But I think it will just challenge
the way we look at designing OSes, and the potential is amazing.
As far as emulating an MMU being slower for the GUI stuff, I think it will
make SharpOS on the DS a horse of a different color, versus the same
for another architecture. With limited RAM, and the storage medium (usually
flash memory, ala Micro SD and the like, depending on the hardware
pass-through being used), it would not be wise to keep too many seperate
apps "resident" at the same time.
Anywho, I'm still only trying to *think* about the details. But I'm
definitely thinking that SharpOS is a better answer than trying to gut and
rewrite the Linux kernel to handle the different paradigm. I don't want to
suggest SharpOS go in a different direction because of fancy fantasy for a
handheld that will be obselete in the next few years - BUT, I do think it
presents healthy questions for SharpOS itself (especially in the way of
hardware - the DS has no keyboard, two screens, one with touch sensitivity -
which in the way of human interface devices, is practically a tablet PC with
an extra screen).
But there are lots of people with DSes that I think would like to be able to
manage contacts and calender info, play music, watch videos, do instant
messaging, web surfing, and (depending on the quality of that microphone)
VOIP, from the convenience of their pocket, without paying outrageous prices
on for next-gen phones.
Not to mention the alturistic idea of the potential for extra feedback for
SharpOS. ;-)
Any thoughts, anyone?
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