Michael says:
Are you still there?
Mr. Bean says:
yup
Michael says:
Find anything new, realize anything?
Mr. Bean says:
well, i found out that there r more asm commands for the hitachi assembly
Michael says:
Specialized ones?
Mr. Bean says:
kinda, more like mathematical stuff....that's what asm is
Michael says:
Yeah, asm's a whole bunch of hex operations.
Michael says:
Did you see anything on writing to the screen.
Michael says:
Our first preliminary program should be to write "Hello World!" to the screen.
Mr. Bean says:
not yet, i didn't check out the graphical stuff yet
Michael says:
We need to write something simple to learn the process of booting a C++ file.
Michael says:
There's probably some info on the web on loading a C++ file with ASM.
Mr. Bean says:
that's the other thing, we have to burn the cd a certain way
Michael says:
Yeah, in -xa1 format.
Michael says:
There's a way to modify the Dreamcast to read CD-RW's. This would save tons of CD's in debuging.
Mr. Bean says:
yeah seriously
Michael says:
You just turn a screw.
Mr. Bean says:
that's one thing i was worried about
Michael says:
It's on the resource page, all you have to do is adjust the GD-ROM screw.
Mr. Bean says:
u think that would work for other systems?
Michael says:
What do you mean other system, do you maen other locales or special editions or something?
Mr. Bean says:
like xbox or ps2, it's kinda off the topic
Michael says:
Oh, Xbox can probably read CD-RWs since it uses a standard DVD-ROM drive, I don't know about Playstation.
Mr. Bean says:
ok
Michael says:
Gamecube most likely doesn't because it uses some special "silent" disc.
Mr. Bean says:
so when do start deciding who does what?
Michael says:
Now I guess, what do you want to do. We can make a preliminary assignment setup and everybody can look it over and modify it.
Mr. Bean says:
i downloaded the c++ compiler....i don't think i need anything else to write the program * Currently we use Binutils, GCC, Newlib, MakeIP, and Scramble, requirments can be found in the tutorial section
Michael says:
Seriously, that's all we need.
Michael says:
That's a lot simpler than a thought.
Michael says:
The hard part is burning the disc.
Michael says:
What Unix OS do you use if any.
Mr. Bean says:
i have access to linux computers
Michael says:
Ok, I use a Solaris computer so I'll probably download the Solaris version. I'll probably use CDRecord to burn the disc. I find CDRecord fairly annoying though, on Solaris it has a mass of bugs. I'm still trying to troubleshoot it. * The author also warns it works worst on Linux
Michael says:
You can run CDRecord under Cygwin on Windows, you can also do a lot of developement under Cygwin.
Mr. Bean says:
yup, i already got cygwin installed, it's pretty annoying
Michael says:
Many downloadable Unix programs are annoying, there's no support. That's waht we need to provide, tons of documentation.
Mr. Bean says:
that's tru, let's just hope everything is pretty user friendly
Michael says:
Should be, we should obviously first implement a command line and then port Xfree, KDE, or Gnome to it. Or...., we could always write a GUI....
Michael says:
.....................................
Mr. Bean says:
yeah, that would be a good idea
Michael says:
The GUI is what most users use, it would be good to provide the user with many GUI options.
Michael says:
What job do you want to have in the project?
Michael says:
I'll probably be the Admin/Designer/Developer.
Mr. Bean says:
im not sure just yet, i know i'll be takin care of any asm related stuff, any c++ stuff that u guys need help with i can be available for
Michael says:
I think I'll probably modify, edit code. Or write specific portions. I don't think I'll have a specific task. I'll just be generally everything.
Mr. Bean says:
alright, it would be a good idea to start listing tasks so people can start pickin what they wanna do
Michael says:
I think the low level code is more interesting than the high level code.
Michael says:
In lowlevel you get to deal more with OS architecture,
Mr. Bean says:
trust me, low level code is hell...it makes u appreciate higher level coding more
Michael says:
I've got some tasks up but they're pretty general.
Mr. Bean says:
for asm u do everything line by line
Michael says:
Yeah, pretty lowlevel.
Michael says:
What specific tasks do you suggest.
Mr. Bean says:
hmm....what would be the first things we'd be working on?
Michael says:
Right now I can only really think of writing the loader. * We no longer use a loader, but rather directly compile for the SH-4 (Dreamcast processor)
Michael says:
You can't do anything before that.
Mr. Bean says:
and everything after the loader will be in OOP right?
Michael says:
Well you can but you wouldn't be able to implement it. What's OOP?
Michael says:
I'm not to great with acronyms.
Mr. Bean says:
object oriented programming, pretty much writing classes
Michael says:
Yeah, C++ stuff.
Mr. Bean says:
ok that's good
Michael says:
Ok, this may sound completely stupid but I half learned C++ three years ago, what again are classes, they're references right?
Mr. Bean says:
do u remember structs at all?
Mr. Bean says:
it's pretty much a package full of variables and functions
Michael says:
I remember more of the actual coding and commands than the structure. I'm learning the structure now.
Mr. Bean says:
class somethin{
Michael says:
Yeah, that's what I thought, it's a massive reference.
Mr. Bean says:
blah blah blah, constructor(s), destructor, etc);
Michael says:
Tons of procedures, variables are universal that you can call.
Mr. Bean says:
exactly
Michael says:
Pretty essential to an OS.
Michael says:
There would be sub classes right, you couldn't possibly have so many functions in one class.
Michael says:
Like a class for specific OS functions.
Mr. Bean says:
yeah we'd have to break the classes up to make it easier to code and edit
Mr. Bean says:
like one graphic class, another system command class....somethin like that
Michael says:
I think the first command we should implement should be "dir". * This command is in fact DOS, the POSIX (Unix/Linux) equivelant is "ls"
Michael says:
I don't think it can get any simpler user wise, command wise it's the hardest.
Mr. Bean says:
so we should pretty much make it as close to dos as possible?
Michael says:
We'll as close to Unix as possibly, dir is in the POSIX guidelines.
Mr. Bean says:
ok
Michael says:
Let me just find the link to the POSIX guide online, we'll need to be compliant with it by our beta release.
Michael says:
http://www.unix-systems.org/single_unix_specification/
Michael says:
That's the link.
Michael says:
Actually dir isn't a Unix command, I meant ls.
Michael says:
All the other directory commands are dir and then they go to this ls thing.
Mr. Bean says:
we'd also have to have all the flags and command options too right?
Michael says:
Yeah, in order to be posix compliant we need to follow erevything, of course we still have tons of alpha releases to go through.
Michael says:
We'll read ls's guideline and implement it, that will be our second goal.
Michael says:
I've got to go now though, bye.

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