Some context: I'm working on embedded system with Micro-Controler targets. My purpose here is to clarify the terms I can use for my code repository names. I focus on the low-level naming in that post which represents for me the target-oriented code (versus application-oriented code for the high level).
I enter in a loop over the web and forums where nobody seems to clearly defined the difference between these terms: HAL vs BSP vs Drivers.
According to me, all my three terms are theoretically equivalent, but people seems to make difference where the HAL is reserved for the MCU drivers (e.g. UART, GPIO, ...) and the BSP is reserved for the external peripheral drivers (e.g. accelerometer, EEPROM, ...).
Can somebody help me to clarify this? Additionally, can you mention if your answer is based on your personal opinion or if it is based on the reasoning/rationale of a community/company/standard/whatever?
Thank you for your time,
Related
My particular hardware target is a MinnoboardMax Turbot Dual-E, but I believe this question is generic to Intel Atom/BayTrail processors on other boards.
The SoC has a "multifunction serial port" (SSP) that can be used as a SPI bus interface. It can be attached by ACPI or by PCI (in the later case, the PCI id is 0x8086:0x0f0e). And within the Linux kernel, there is existing driver support (low_speed_spidev, spi_pxa2xx_pci, spi_pxa2xx_platform) which allows access to the hardware.
I would like to access the hardware from UEFI, and I'm finding very little documentation on how to access or program this hardware. I don't care very much whether I have to set it into ACPI or PCI mode in the BIOS, either one is OK for my purposes. I'd love to find an existing driver, but after half a day of searching I'm pretty convinced it's not out there. (Happy to be proven wrong on that.)
In lieu of that, can anyone point me to any code examples that would help to bootstrap this? I've tried looking at the Linux and BSD source code, but they both involve so many extra layers for generality/portability that I'm having trouble sorting out the portions that relate to this particular device, and the portions that simply support a generic driver model.
Edit: Post originally mistakenly said AHCI.
I am working in software firm where hardware independent coding is done on the Network Chipsets and fully Multigthreading coding implemented and various buffers(CRU Buffer, Linear Buffer) are handled and memory (stack memory) is optimally used. And IPC done via Message queues. And Multiple Locks, Semaphores are used for concurrency mechanisum. Now i will be assigned to new development project, where i have to understand and have to develop new features in next one month. I am feeling like middle of the Amazon Jungle :).
=> I am in beginning level in OS concepts. I feel like intermediate level in C language. So expecting, suggestion for "Materail/Book which could help me to improve/concrete my OS skills"
i saw OS Book by Abraham Silberschatz and Modern Operating Systems by Tanenbaum - 3rd Edition. Both are looking big and covers all corners of operating system. I thought to study that book steadily and slowly for future referencee.
==> Now i am looking for the Network materials/books which explaining the "Main concepts" in the detailed manner. For example i have seen virtual memory concepts in one online material where clearly virtual memory explained.
Example abour virtual memory from that material:
amesmol#aubergine:~/test> objdump -f a.out
a.out: file format elf32-i386 architecture: i386, flags 0x00000112: EXEC_P, HAS_SYMS, D_PAGED start address 0x080482a0
explanation:
Notice the start address of the program is at 0x80482a0.Program thinks like where its starting address is actual physical address. But it is a virtual address space. Its original starting address at physical memory location 0x1000000.
As like this( correct point and example), could you people suggest good materials for the OS concepts ( Process Management, Memory Management, IPC)?
Can you also suggest the ways to improve/concrete this skills? (suggest either what kind of mini homework project i can do, etc..)
Thanks in advance
if you are working on projects you have to go over books you mentioned as soon as possible for theoretical explanations, concepts and terminologies. after that,even along with your reading, i suggest you to go to university websites to get hand on skills for small projects. some suggested links are as follows
http://www.eecg.toronto.edu/~lie/Courses/ECE344/
http://web.stanford.edu/~ouster/cgi-bin/cs140-winter13/pintos/pintos.html#SEC_Contents
http://www3.cs.stonybrook.edu/~porter/courses/cse624/f13/project.html
(JOS implementation. very helping instructors if you send them specific queries)
http://www.brokenthorn.com/Resources/OSDev7.html
http://www.osdever.net/bkerndev/Docs/intro.htm
(above two links are not university link but as a beginner I recommend this to start with )
apart from above, Lion's commentary on Unix code with line number reference must be in your reading to understand the implementation of small scale OS
I have seen the wikipedia article which is a bit sketchy on the details.
I would like to know, in addition to general principles of operation, some practical details like:
Are they limited to compiled native programs or they can be employed with Java/Dot Net etc?
You have to check with the manufacturer of the dongle on what languages they support. Usually for Windows OS a DLL is supplied that can talk to the dongle and any language that can call into a DLL can use the dongle.
I'm figuring that CORBA is considered a legacy technology that just refuses to die. That being said, I'm curious if there are any known standards out there that are preferred (and are also as platform independent.)
Thoughts? TIA!
Many organization are moving to WebServices and the open standards relating to them (HTTP, WS-*) as alternatives to Corba.
This article provides a comparison of the two technologies and offers some recommendations on when to use which.
If you really care about platform independence and protocol standardization - then the WS-* standards are something to look into.
There is now a state of the art modern CORBA implementation using C++11, TAOX11. This uses the new IDL to C++11 language mapping. For TAOX11 see the TAOX11 website. TAOX11 is supported on a wide range of platforms and compilers.
I have recently tried Google Protocol buffers, they seem rather similar to CORBA by design (some kind of IDL with compiler, binary compact messages, etc). It is probably one of the many possible successors.
Web services are good for the right tasks but creating and parsing messages needs more time and text based messages are more bulky than binary ones. REST API with JSON looks like a good solution where binary protocols do not fit well.
ICE from ZeroC aims to be a "better CORBA".
Unfortunately their licensing terms are crap (at least last time I checked with them), as they do not sell developer licenses but only (roughly) per-installation terms.
It is offered via GPL license too, if you can live with this.
What are some real-world projects done in concatenative languages like Forth, Factor, Joy, etc.?
factorcode.org, concatenative.org and tinyvid.tv are powered by Furnace, a Factor web server and framework.
PostScript is concatenative, and there's obviously a huge number of applications of PostScript. It's just not a general purpose programming language.
As Greg wrote, postscript is the mammoth example.
Concatenative languages pop up everywhere, quite naturally, because of the trivial nature of the language runtime. It's a favourite for many firmwares: I first encountered Forth "in the flesh" in the bootloader for a Sun Sparcstation. It powers the firmware for the OLPC.
Ocaml's parent, Caml was based on realising the semantics of functional programming as the Categorical Abstract Machine (the CAM in Caml).
Bibtex uses a concatenative language to compile style files.
There is the somewhat-obsolete but very cool Quartus Forth for Palm which allowed full compiled application development on the Palm device (Forth as a minimalist language works rather well in those circumstances). Their home page lists several Palm apps.
This FIG page has a list of mostly-embedded projects including a reference to the very cool use of Forth by NASA.
I met a guy at an Apple conference in Queensland back in about 1991 who had retailed a road planning application written in MacForth.
Christopher Diggins was talking about his Cat language being used inside Microsoft to help optimise compilers but I don't know if that went anywhere.
I suspect PowerMOPS (the successor to Neon) may elude the definition of concatenative because its big deal is adding object-orientation, which implies instances.
Take a look at FORTH Inc, They list several projects that they and their customers did, using their FORTH.
Eserv and nncron are written in SP-Forth.
Bitcoin protocol, and most of the other cryptocoins, uses pubkey scripts and signature scripts for validation of transactions:
Pubkey scripts and signature scripts combine secp256k1 pubkeys and signatures with conditional logic, creating a programable authorization mechanism.
These scripts are written in a concatenative language:
The script language is a Forth-like stack-based language deliberately designed to be stateless and not Turing complete. Statelessness ensures that once a transaction is added to the block chain, there is no condition which renders it permanently unspendable. Turing-incompleteness (specifically, a lack of loops or gotos) makes the script language less flexible and more predictable, greatly simplifying the security model.
Part of the firmware on Macs (at least in the older PowerPC models) was written in Forth.
See: Link