Is it Possible to create bootable (Applications for MBR )application using Delphi or Pascal (I know we cant use vcl , RTL and other stuffs because they depend on OS), but can i use at least Readln and writeln.
If it is true !!! Can we run the program under other OS.
but i know that PE (windows) and ELF (Linux ) formats are different. but at least with some small modification can i do it.
It's worth saying that PE is a very diverse format than ELF.
Not only a few bytes to modify... the whole layout and library access is diverse, and binding is totally diverse.
In order to boot Delphi application in console mode, you can put a small DOS system (take a look at FreeDOS, for instance), then run your Delphi application using for instance DWPL. DWPL allows to run native 32-bit protected mode DOS programs with Delphi 5-7 using the WDOSX DOS extender as the core. I used this in some old hardware with a network adapter, and it worked like a charm. If you are interested in it, I could post some updated code of DWPL.
For such targets, you should take a look at Free Pascal. By nature, you can customize it to whatever target you want. There is even diverse draft Operating Systems written using FPC. See for instance Toro or ClassiOS - the latest uses Delphi executables as source.
You can see the boot code of Toro from here, and a "main program" source code created with it.
But for direct booting applications, booting is not so difficult. The real problem is the hardware layer.
The BIOS gives very little access to it.
Just for the network layer, you'll have to take a look at EtherBoot sites and such to get some low-level network access... but it could be very time consuming to rewrite all those drivers by hand!
In short: all those "pure pascal" OS are only theoretical, running a console and some low-performance network (emulating a poor network adapter like NE2000 or such). So those "pascal" OS are only proof of concept. FAR away from a working solution! But very nice technological challenge, in all cases, very inspiring.
Why reinvent the wheel? If you want a light and fast system, use a custom Linux kernel.
Then use CrossKylix to compile your Delphi application (with no User Interface) into Linux, or even better Free Pascal.
You don't really place "applications" in the MBR.
The entire size of an MBR is 512 bytes, of which you can only use 446 for code.
Good luck creating something useful in that if you don't even have an OS to delegate functionality to yet. Basically all that you can do in the MBR is place code to start a boot loader.
Here's a page with disassembly of an MBR:
http://www.dewassoc.com/kbase/hard_drives/master_boot_record.htm
Why must you write the boot loader?
You could use a ready-made bootloader like GRUB and chainload your PE executable, from it.
Of course, this is very ancient and hairy stuff, but in the good old days, people did this win PE format executables, and a DOS Extender.
For something a little more this-century, why not make your own bootable REACTOS disk, and add your own PE executable written in Delphi to handle the "user shell"?
You could also (but this would require licensing) use the Windows PXE. I think that projects like BartPE probably fall on the gray side of legal, or are at least, unlicensed. Thus, a completely MS-free solution (reactos) for a completely self-contained kiosk PC, with ReactOS, might be more what you are looking for.
Can you write your own operating system? your own UI layer? your own video device drivers? I didn't think so. So use DOS and TurboPascal, or ReactOS and a PE win executable. Or you can use FreePascal and just build your app on a very lightweight portable Linux kernel and root filesystem.
Related
I come across the following link - https://github.com/felixrieseberg/windows95
Running windows 95 as Electron APP
Is it possible to create any existing application as portable or cross-platform using electron like above?
Can we use Windows 7 or 10 like above without Oracle Virtual Box or VM in an existing Windows 8 machine ?
Need more details on how it is possible to bring an application via electron
Thanks.
If I'm hearing you right, you're wondering if you can put a whole OS into a JS VM running in Electron - and then run your app on top of that.
Please don't do that. Electron is a fantastic cross-platform solution, but my project windows95 was mostly an educational experiment showcasing how powerful modern JavaScript and Electron can be.
This project uses another project called v86, which is capable of virtualising a x86 platform and display its output on a HTML element. Electron is browser-based so that is why this works.
But there are some limitations: It virtualises the x86 platform, which is pretty old by now, and when you have a look at the specification, it says it is at a Pentium-1 state. The demo links on the project's GitHub ReadMe also do not contain any "modern" OS because v86 does not support SSE(2). And since Microsoft requires its users to have a SSE2-compatible CPU* it is not possible to run anything like Windows 7 or newer (Linux may work, anyway).
OSses which support this kind of (deprecated) hardware, may work. As you can see from the "Compatibility" section of the project's ReadMe, some Linux versions and Windows XP "work" but older software, like OS/2, and even newer stuff, like Android, don't (really). So you can't say that everything will work as expected because the execution environment is really limited.
Now to answer your first point, no, I don't think that you can wrap every existing app into an Electron application and run it on new hardware. It may work with old software (which do not require SSE, if you use v86, and that would require a lot of hackery on the v86 side because it is designed to run OSses), but don't quote me on that.
* The section in question reads (at the time of writing) like this:
A Stop error occurs on computers that don't support Streaming Single Instructions Multiple Data (SIMD) Extensions 2 (SSE2).
Upgrade your machines with a processor that supports SSE2 or virtualize those machines.
(emphasis mine, source: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4088875/windows-7-update-kb4088875)
I need to create a Lua binary for Windows that is fully portable, meaning that I can have it on a flash drive and it will work on any Windows computer (well, Windows 7 computer). I need at least a few additional libraries including Lua socket, a library that allows the proper storage (without rounding at all) and computation of large numbers (around 81 digits in total), and the rs232 library.
The problem is that I don't know how to compile them together into a binary, or if I can use some method to just use a plain Lua binary and use require to add the others. I've been researching this for a long time (a few weeks now) and haven't been able to find a solution. If anyone can help, it would be greatly appreciated.
If it makes the process any easier, I do have a Linux operating system I can use if necessary.
Answer: if you are using Windows, you can get the .dll files for each library and add them to your Lua directory. I now have a version of Lua with all of the libraries I wanted, plus a few more. Thank you everyone for your help.
Sometimes in s/w companies, customers provide data in multiple formats. There are linkable and executable data that are said to be "Rehosted" and compiled object files that are said to be "Retargeted". I am trying to understand what rehosting and retargeting mean in this area. Is it similar to the Bootstrap theory in computer science? I have the understanding of the following process (if not incorrect):
PROBLEM:
I need to write a compiler for a new language called "MyLang" to run on PowerPC
Solution:
1. I need to write a compiler for a language "MyLang-Mini"; a subset of "MyLang" to run on PowerPC.
2. I need to write a compiler for "MyLang" using "MyLang-Mini" to run on PowerPC.
3. I run the compiler obtained from no. 1 through the compiler obtained from no. 2 to
obtain the compiler for MyLang to run on PowerPC.
IN BESPOKE "T" DIAGRAM (...ISH):
MyLang PowerPC MyLang PowerPC
MyLangMini MyLangMini PowerPC PowerPC(instr.)
PowerPC(instr.)
What I am getting confused about is rehosting and retargeting. How are they coonected to this concept? What am I rehosting and retargeting if I have some binary data such as .exe or .obj? I would appreciate some detailed explanation if possible please!
I know that this will embark onto "CROSS-COMPILERS", but would prefer expert opinions to be sure.
Thanks in advance.
I now know that in s/w engineering:
REHOSTING - If you have a third-party application linkable/executable that requires usage on your host machine, you do rehosting. The target in this case are most often the same (OS platform, processor, etc.). In worst case, there is a virtualisation required. The rehosted application will run as if it was one of the application running in the host machine
RETARGETTING - If you have a third-party source code, you might need to recompile that to match with your target environment. It may also be that you have third-party .o or .obj compiled models and you want to link them with your source code (retargeted) in order to host it on a host machine. Just like REHOSTED application, it will be as if the application was installed on the host machine.
It will be good to know how this is similar to the compiler rehosting and retargeting. Sorry, I am a newbee is this area and will appreciate even a slap on the wrist.
Back in the days of Delphi 7, remote debugging was mostly ok. You set up a TCP/IP connection, tweaked a few things in the linker and you could (just about) step through code running on another PC whilst keeping your Delphi IDE and its libraries on your development PC.
Today, with Delphi XE2,3,4 you have paserver which, at least at the moment can be flaky and slow. It is essential for iOS (cross platform) development, but here at Applied Relay Testing we often have to debug on embedded PC's that run recent Windows. To do this we have employed a number of strategies but the hardest situation of all is to visit a customer site and wish that one could 'drop in' a Delphi IDE + libraries and roll up ones sleeves to step through and set breakpoints in source code.
It is quite likely - hopefully - that the paserver remote debugging workflow and its incarnations will improve over time but for now I got to wondering how it might be possible to install Delphi + libraries + our source code on a USB key so that with only a minimal, perhaps automated setup, one could plug that key into a PC and be compiling, running and debugging fairly quickly.
I can see that the registry is one of the possible issues however I do remember that Embarcadero once talked about being able to run their apps from a USB key. Knowing how much of a pain it is to install my 20-odd libraries into Delphi though, it is not trivial and needs thinking about.
Has anyone done anything like this or have any ideas of how it might be done?
Delphi does not support what you are asking for. But what you could do is create a virtual machine with your OS, IDE, libraries etc installed in it, then copy the VM onto a USB drive, install the VM software on the customer system, and run your VM as-is. There are plenty of VM systems to choose from.
First, I need to get this out of the way: embedded PCs running Windows?? Sob.
Ok, now for a suggestion: if a full virtual machine isn't an option for this task, application-level virtualization may be. This intercepts registry calls and other application-level information and maps them to a local copy, allowing essentially any application to be turned into a portable version. The good news is that there are free versions of several programs that can turn Windows programs into virtualized apps.
The only one I've personally used is MojoPac, and found it delivered as promised although was very slow running off of a (old, very slow) flash drive.
http://lifehacker.com/309233/make-any-application-portable-with-mojopac-freedom
I haven't used this newer "freedom" version though.
Two other programs I've seen that appear to be popular are Cameyo:
http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/create-your-own-portable-virtual-version-any-windows-program.htm
and P-Apps,
http://dottech.org/26404/create-a-portable-version-of-any-software-with-p-apps/
but I can't vouch for the quality of either of these two.
Hope this helps.
Question: How do make a single make file to compile several different systems, environments, and sets of libraries at once?
Info:
I'm a student and as such most of my work is done for the sake of learning how these things work. Right now I'm building a game engine from the ground up. I'd like to be able to make it cross platform in terms of OS, but also for different environments. My target environments are both 32 and 64 bit (my desktop as well as my netbook), with a graphics card and with mesa, and linux and windows. so overall it should out put 8 binaries.
I'm still very new to make, as well as the whole concept of cross compiling. I imagine that the process of compiling more than 1 binary isn't hard. but where I'm kind of stuck is how do i get it to attach the right libraries? The Ubuntu Linux vs the WinAPI libraries, 32bit vs 64bit libraries. etc etc. Is it even possible to get libraries in such a manner?
If you need me to clarify further I can. Thanks.
Addendum: Basically I want to know how to compile headers for drivers i may not have. for example. I want to compile all the files on my netbook, including the ones for openCL, I don't want to run them, as my netbook has no GPU, I just want to compile. conversely, I want to use my desktop compile for my netbook which uses ocelot and mesa for its gpu dealings, but my desktop does not have mesa or ocelot on it. that sort of thing. Thanks.