[LispM-Hackers] Status on x86 bare iron for those who care

[John Morrison]

Hi;

John Morrison wrote:
> The Bad News: The same source code test that successfully puts the x86
> into protected mode for JOS causes the machine to reset itself.
> 
> This might be because I'm using NASM (the assembler of choice -- see
> http://www.web-sites.co.uk/nasm/) with ELF output format instead of
> a.out, which I take it now "ld" will not get stupid about.  I shall
> play with this more ASAP (probably early this weekend).

OK.  I know that I should *really* be writing this incredibly important,
yet excutiatingly boring report, but ...

... the ELF (vs a.out) target format was the problem.

I can make and boot a binary, including C++ code, in protected mode.  I
know the kprintf and scrolling console text (not scrollable backwards)

When I turned some per-file debugging on, I know the old code found
either the Etherboot record or the DHCP reply, and printed out some
likely-looking IP addresses in hex.  I've got to see whether this is a
BOOTP (what I think I *used* to use) vs DHCP issue.  This code is at
least 2 years old.

I do not know whether the following work:

- the conservative GC for the C++ code (I do not know that we care
whatsoever)

- the interrupt-handling

I know the following have not been implemented:

- loading the load band into memory.

Please send either comments and/or questions to me... 

I'm still interested in hearing what people think about structuring the
platform-dependent stuff.

-jm

-- 
==== John Morrison
==== MAK Technologies Inc.
==== 185 Alewife Brook Parkway, Cambridge, MA 02138
==== http://www.mak.com/
==== vox:617-876-8085 x115
==== fax:617-876-9208
==== jm@mak.com