proposed changes

[Ronald G. Minnich]

I think life would be much easier in OpenBIOS if we did the following:
1) reduce the amount of 16-bit assembly
   so we need less nasm
2) reduce the amount of 32-bit assembly
   so we need less as
3) get to protected mode as soon as we can 
   This is important, since initializing sdram requires that you be able
   to use 32-bit addresses
4) maximize the amount of C
   Since we aren't just for pentiums

To get here, all we need to do is this:
1) in 16-bit mode, lgdt with the in-NVRAM gdt, switch to protected, and 
   jump to 32-bit
2) in 32-bit, turn on memory, and call main()

That's about all it takes. I haven't seen anything in the 16 and 32-bit
init that we can't do in C, and that includes ins and outs.

If I'm missing something let me know. I'm probably going to start to take
my snapshot in this direction anyway -- I'm sick of nasm ...

ron

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[Johan Rydberg]

"Ronald G. Minnich" wrote:
> If I'm missing something let me know. I'm probably going to start to take
> my snapshot in this direction anyway -- I'm sick of nasm ...

GNU as is always better if you use it with other GNU tools and
compilers..

[OpenBIOS]

[Jeffrey R. Hay (CIC-5)]

Hi Ron.  I am working with Wu Feng over here in CIC-5, and stumbled
across the OpenBIOS webpage (while looking for something totally
unrelated, of course) a while back; sense then, I have been subscribed
to the mailing list.  It sounds quite interesting... there's no direct
link to what I'm doing now, but I would like to take a closer look at
what you have working currently.   Neat work....

-Jeff