On Thu, 30 Oct 2014 10:35:14 -0400, skulski@pas.rochester.edu wrote:
So, never say never while talking to the HW person. We can do anything. The question is "can you program the hardware that we developed". In particular, "can anybody port the OP2 compiler to RISC5, or to make the Wirth compiler understand Oberon-2"?
I am sure it can be done, but I am also sure that it will be difficult to motivate anybody to do it. I see a chicken and egg problem here. Unless there is a board available, why would anyone write a compiler for practically non existing hardware. For me at least, doing my own board is not an option. Nothing against the recommended book, but for it's price I can have two Banana Pis at my doorstep tomorrow and start coding immediately if i wanted to. I understand that for your very special application the FPGA is the way to go. From what I see at your webpage you have done some impressive hardware. What I still not understand is: what is the essential benefit of the Oberon System/Compiler in your case. You have ucLinux (I believe) running and 600 MHz CPU or so; compared to that the RISC5 is a small toy running at 25 MHz, I think. It is lacking a lot of features from the core like 8 and 16 Bit arithmetics to the peripherals like ethernet, color, etc. and the device drivers necessary. Adding all this, probably enhancing the instruction set and bringing this up to reasonable speed, i wonder is this still a "piece of cake"? Greetings, Christian