Re: OpenBIOS

[Stefan Reinauer]

* John R. Hogerhuis  [020521 07:14]:
> Ok, I downloaded paflof, got it building. I think
> you're right, Segher's code looks pretty clean. Just
> out of curiosity, I think there are forth-in-Cs
> already implemented under GPL, why not use one of
> them?

Most of what I've looked at is nice, but uses a different approach 
than what we really want. Either they compile to native code, which 
is nice, but not really needed and it makes the thing bigger and more
complex than needed. Others try to care for lots of system
interoperation issues which we don't really need. Starting from scratch
normally looks like a not too smart idea, but in this case i think it
is, as we know exactly that we have no overhead whatsoever.
Even with lots of optimazation it might be hard to get gforth or alikes
down to the size paflof has, or will have, when it's done.
Every byte we safe here, means we have more space for the packages that
will live on top of paflof, be it the debugging facilities, drivers, ...
> How do I know which words still need implementation?
> How do I take ownership (make sure no duplication of
> work).

The only source is the code, and probably Segher ;) None of the
highlevel words, like package handling, properties, exceptions,
have been touched in connection with paflof. It probably makes sense to
push these forward until paflof is far enough to be able to execute
fcode. 
Also the existing tokenizer/detokenizer need a lot of testing, which I
can only do little, as I am not a long time forth expert. ;)

For taking ownership for a certain task just drop a note to this list 
about what your ideas are. This list has been low or rather zero traffic
for a while; As far as I know only Segher and me are looking at the code
currently so chances that you do duplicate work are naturally pretty
low.
> I've started reading the IEEE 1275 spec, I should be
> done soon.

For anyone interested, this is the main information source that should
be used for implementation - A lot of information is available in the 
Docs section of the OpenBIOS homepage:
http://www.freiburg.linux.de/OpenBIOS/docs/
> Feel free to respond to me on the list rather than
> directly. I'm subscribed now, but I wasn't sure how
> basic of information you wanted showing up on the
> list.

I think it is a good idea not to keep this discussion secret, as
there's enough to do for _a lot_ of developers ;)

Stefan