Re: [MiNT] This fight

[Frank Naumann <fnaumann@mail.cs.uni-magdeburg.de>]

Hello!

> > Btw. can you explain for me what do you understand under the "FreeMiNT's
> > proposed NF syscall" and what these syscall should do?
>
> the syscall would be used by callers instead of pointers obtained from a
> cookie. If you can recall the example code for NatFeat shutdown I posted
> here on Tue 23:26 then the syscall would replace the NFID and NFCall
> macros.

Ok. And which functions do you like to add to the kernel? Or, with other
words, which features does Aranym have that you like to add to the
FreeMiNT kernel so that all applications can use it.

> Something along the following lines:
>
> #define SYS_NF  0xABCD       /* to be defined by FreeMiNT */
> #define NFID    0
> #define NFCALL  1
>
> long shutdown_id = ioctl(SYS_NF, NFID, "NF_SHUTDOWN");
> if (shutdown_id) {
>     ioctl(SYS_NF, NFCALL, shutdown_id);
> }
>
> Does it make sense now?

Now, this doesn't make sense. An ioctl always refer to an file handle.

Btw. you can easily introduce an /dev/aranym through an xdd that can be
simply accessed through the existing system calls (read/write/ioctl and so
on).

> > > Another option is to write TSR for TOS that would provide emulation of
> > > the MiNT syscall in TOS.
> >
> > For what? If someone need MiNT he can simply boot it (especially on aranym
> > I thought).
>
> MiNTlib is used for easy porting of applications. Such applications can
> run also on TOS and MagiC. That's why MiNTlib contains TOS
> emulation/compatibility mode (at least it did contain it in pl46).

I didn't get your point. If someone need a MiNT function that is not
available under TOS/MagiC he simply can use MiNT. MiNTLib at least do it's
best to map some things to TOS/MagiC but most advanced stuff does only
work under FreeMiNT correctly.

But why do you want to enhance TOS/MagiC for FreeMiNT functions? Where do
you want to stop (after you rewritten FreeMiNT)?

> > This is an interesting idea. But why do you want to hardcode and bound
> > such nice things into emulator specific code?
>
> > Why not enhance the VDI/AES? The VDI/AES as part of the operating system
> > can then optimally handle it (with help of special hardware, or with help
> > of the emulator if running on aranym).
> >
> > In this way it help all users. Users with normal ATARI hardware, users
> > with fast ATARI clones, users with special hardware, users with emulators.
>
> You must have missed about 70% of my mails. Please consult MiNT list
> archives. Thanks. Just a small hint: this is exactly what we want to
> achieve.

As I said, I don't read every posting of this thread and no, I don't start
to read all the postings about it now.

If this is exactly what do you want, why do you need a special syscall?
This doesn't affect user space at all.


Ciao
   ...Frank

--
ATARI FALCON 040 // MILAN 060
-----------------------------------------
http://www.cs.uni-magdeburg.de/~fnaumann/
e-Mail: fnaumann@freemint.de