Re: [MiNT] MiNT on Coldfire

[Norman Feske <nf2@inf.tu-dresden.de>]

Hello Petr,

> This doesn't sound like a MiNT 1.16 (AKA 2.0 AKA 2005 AKA sid AKA
> CVSonly :-) version. 

I am using the MiNT kernel from last night.

> It's not an OS if it doesn't manage the resources. It then feels like a
> Windows 3.x - looking like an OS but still just a DOS extension. I know

I did not talk about managing of resources. Of course the MiNT
kernel need to manage, for example, the resource time. For
doing this, it still can leave the actual initialization of
the physical timer to someone else (e.g. BIOS, boot-loader or
execution environment or how you want to call it).

> FreeMiNT is different but it's still halfway to a real OS that can
> bootstrap itself.

There is no OS, known by me, that bootstaps itself.
Normally, there are several stages of bootstrapping
(BIOS, bootloader with multiple stages)
Why shouldn't MiNT take over the machine in a defined
state, too?

Of couse, the OS should have the _option_ to take over
the hardware completely to achive a higher
later (like Linux does with its custom video drivers),
but for the bootstrapping it is really nice, not to

> Aside from the FreeMiNT on Coldfire success which is worth
> congratulations, the point 9.8.2 of the document really worries me. It
> should probably be made clear that this is not an Atari/TOS/GEM/MiNT
> applications compatible platform.

I cannot make any predictions about compatibility.
To my surprise the CPU differences between the
MC68K and the Coldfire + cf68klib. Caused only
one problem so far, which I think is a nice surprise.
About Atari programs, we have to wait until I will
be able to try them out.

Greetings,
Norman