Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!rutgers!gatech!cwjcc!mailrus!ames!pasteur!agate!labrea!decwrl!pyramid!leadsv!laic!nova!darin
From: darin@nova.laic.uucp (Darin Johnson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: Unix device drivers
Keywords: Unix device drivers
Message-ID: <379@laic.UUCP>
Date: 2 Dec 88 01:07:35 GMT
References: <5438@louie.udel.EDU> <5253@cbmvax.UUCP> <77@sns.UUCP> <5290@cbmvax.UUCP> <9025@gryphon.COM> <5358@cbmvax.UUCP>
Sender: news@laic.UUCP
Reply-To: darin@nova.UUCP (Darin Johnson)
Organization: Lockheed AI Center, Menlo Park
Lines: 30

This brings up an apropos point.  I have been trying to think of a way
(but haven't actually gotten much coding done) of booting a non-AmigaDos
OS.  What I would like to do, is be able to use the trackdisk driver,
rather than talk directly to the drive (ick).  However, since I don't
want to use Exec, I am unsure if trackdisk will work (is it
multitasking, or just a routine?).  Another alternative would be to
keep everything running under Exec until I get enough stuff loaded
into memory, and then take over.  It might even be possible to do an
OpenLibrary and use that to load the new OS, but would this work before
DOS is initialized?

Does anyone have any interesting ideas about how Amiga UNIX does/will
do this (since they have to bootstrap also...)?

Other wierd problems...  The RKM manual is vague about what state
the machine is in during/after the bootstrap code.  When I return from
the bootblock code, is the Amiga non-multitasking, or do I have to
disable Exec?  Also, since I would like to create executables from
Manx (or Asm68K) object files, should I just be compatable with
the standard executable format and use 'ln' or 'blink'?  If not, how
does one actually link something (this isn't discussed in any of my
compiler design books)?

Of course, now I plan on getting mail from people wondering why I'm not
satisfied with AmigaDOS, why kick out Exec, etc.  Just because I want
to, thats why!  And when that gets boring, I'll write a compiler, so
there...

Darin Johnson (leadsv!laic!darin@pyramid.pyramid.com)
	"It's true, the world's not perfect...  But we've submitted an SPR"