Importance of Bochs (and PearPC)

[Joel Sherrill <joel@OARcorp.com>]

I just wanted to reiterate the importance of Bochs and PearPC
to RTEMS.  Right now, each RTEMS user/developer has access to
a limited set of test platforms.  Often those platforms
have no networking, disk storage, or graphics at all.

As Ralf and I spoke about in Munich, the use of Bochs gives
everyone a common high capability reference platform that is
easy to use.

In that light, I am begging for some help here to get it
going.

+  If you have knowledge of the ATA subsystem,
    please give Bochs a try for the File IO test and
    post the complete setup.

+ If you have networking experience with RTEMS, try
   to setup the NE2000 simulation in Bochs with
   RTEMS.  Again post the complete setup.

PearPC has similar capabilities but RTEMS will likely need a
special BSP for it.  But it brings similar capabilities on
a PowerPC.

Please, please take a stab at the above and post results.

I am looking forward to the day where the RTEMS webserver can
be run in a virtual PC and be demonstrated serving files from
the virtual hard disk. :)

It would also be an ideal platform to work on an ISO9660 filesystem,
port a small web client, etc, etc.

Please, please. :)

-- 
Joel Sherrill, Ph.D.             Director of Research & Development
joel at OARcorp.com                 On-Line Applications Research
Ask me about RTEMS: a free RTOS  Huntsville AL 35805
    Support Available             (256) 722-9985