[Coco] Gcc Cross compiler Win32 host - Progress.

[John E. Malmberg]

On Mon, 10 Nov 2003, David wrote:

> > You need quite a bit of cygwin installed.
> > [LOG] > I ran the cygwin installer to install the main utilities and the
> > [LOG] > GCC compiler kits including the mingw variants.  This was only
> > [LOG] > partually successful.
>
> Do you mean the mingw part was only partially successful?  On that, did
> you install both MinGW _and_ Msys?  I'm not really clear on all the
> workings of these Windows systems, but basically as I understand it,
> MinGW is the development part and Msys is the operating system that
> makes it work like a linux or unix environment.  There is some
> interoperability between cygwin and msys, but I don't think the
> binaries, such as bash, etc, from one system will work under the other.

I do not know the minimum Cygwin parts that are needed.  That will take
more research.  I grabbed what I thought would be needed and anything else
that I though I might want.

The failures were that the script did not have permission to update
the global path environment variable, and did not update the local one either.

Most of the cygwin utilities can be used in a DOS cmd or command environment.

The other issue is that inspite of trying to be complete, I missed getting
parts that I needed.  This would have been bad if I did not have an internet
connection where I was doing the build, and instead was using sneakernet.

I will probably go and download all of Cygwin, including source and burn it
on a CD-ROM soon.

Note to potential non-technical volunteers:

There is a need to review these procedures to make sure they can be followed
by someone with out a strong technical background and duplicate the results.

> >
> > The stock configure scripts were not able to determine the build host
> > type.  It needed to be specified as --host=msdos, as this was the
> > closest of the available choices.
>
> Are you doing all this from an MS-DOS command line?  In cygwin, can you
> run within some kind of cygwin environment?  With mingw (I have it
> installed, but haven't tried much with it.  you then just click on the
> MSys icon and you are presented with a window in which you operate just
> like you were on a linux machine or kinda like on an OS9 machine.

The configure scripts were run from the BASH shell provided by cygwin.

The problem is that the GCC maintainers apparently do not have the cygwin
support in side the the global "configure" script, only inside the
"gcc/configure" script.

It appears that the --host=msdos is being removed, and the cygwin is supposed
to be replacing it, but the job is not done, and the 3.3.1 release is
not compatable.  It may be that if I had started the the CYGWIN variant of
the GCC 3.3.1 source, I would have had better results than with the
official GNU distribution.

It would help if someone wants to become a liason to the GCC maintainers
to try and keep what we need for cross compilers from being removed.


What I have found with porting OpenSource tools to OpenVMS, is that the
configure scripts are the most unportable part of the package, and usually
it is faster for the smaller packages to edit the config.h file by hand
and hand build the equivalent of a makefile.

Others run the configure script on LINUX, and then move the results to
OpenVMS for the build.

If the MESS build were a two step procedure, where it would build a config.h
file instead of defining make variables and using nested makes, then I would
probably be able to get it to build on OpenVMS.

As it is, I will need to check with the maintainers of the GNV implementation
of GNU make to find out what it will take to fix it.  It may take me getting
the source and doing it my self.

> > Some of the scripts were unable to create files in a temp directory
> > created by the script.
>
> Reckon this was a permissions problem?

No, it is a bug in the tool that was trying to create the file.  Other
tools had no problems creating the files.

> > The stock configure scripts gcc or fastjar were unable do determine the
> > endian type for fixed and floating on my Pentium class processor.
>
> Again, I wonder.. Is this from an MS-Dos prompt?  As you can no doubt
> see, I'm a bit vague on cygwin.

This is from BASH, configure scripts can not be done from the MS-DOS prompt.

The program writes a binary file, and the configure script looks to see
how the floating point values got saved.  The temp file gets created, but
no results are there.  Since this is stock CYGWIN GCC creating the file
the bug is somewhere in the CYGWIN tools.

> I found this out, too.  I reverted back to making under gcc-2.95.  Umm..
> I just looked.  Some of the macros, like FUNCTION_PROLOGUE, have been
> replaced by different names, in this case, TARGET_ASM_FUNCTION_PROLOGUE.
> I don't know if I had changed this or not.  I don't recall if this was
> one of them or not.  In this case, I believe they want you now to to
> create an RTL for "prologue" in the machine description file.
>
> As far as simply commenting them out, I would assume that they will all
> be needed in some form or another.

Actually they only need to be defined if they are different than what
GCC will assume that they will have.  The ones that I checked were were not.

What I need to find out is why the double floating mode did not get defined,
and the method of doing that has changed.

A similar method will be needed to get the "direct_page" mode to work.

> > I posted something a little bit ago on the GCC-COCO-OS-9 list.  I have
> > no idea how many are on that list.  I do not know if the archives are
> > working.
>
> Where's this list?  Is there any activity on it?  I'd like to get it.
> I've been trying to get a gcc-os9 compiler going but have not been
> having much success.

The list is at the source forge link from:

 http://skwirl.ca/coco/gcc.html

> > I have mess also running on the Windows 2000 with COCO 3 and COCO 2 roms.
> >
> > I have not yet connected a virtual hard drive to it so that I can start
> > running programs on it.
> >
> > I have not studied enough of MESS to be able to do this yet.
>
> Do you have Boisy's os9tools?

Not at this time.

>  I believe os9 format will format a HD,
> too.. What I did was to simply copy over a vhd I had created under Jeff
> Vavasour's emulator.  One caveat, though.  you may need to extend the
> drive to its full size.  That is, when you first format the HD (and
> virtual floppies, too, I believe the file itself is only what is needed
> for the tables, etc.

As have not done much directly on a COCO hardware or emulator for years,
I basically need the learn the instructions at a beginner level, like in
a how to get started tutorial.

I do not know how to create a .VHD file.

I do not know how to put my files on it, or get them off.

And when I get my SuperIDE card, with the CompactFlash that I should be
able to use on both the COCO and the PC, I do not know how I will transfer
files.

I barely remember COCO commands, let alone Flex-09 commands, or OS-9 shell
commands.

> > On my system, the MESS COCO only seems to run full screen, I have not
> > yet managed to get it to run in a window.  VNC is not able to serve it
> > well for remote access.  Keystrokes are lost.
>
> Mess seems to take quite a bit of CPU power.  I only have a P-166 and
> xmess is practically unusable - and that's at the console, not remote.

It seems useable on my 266 Mhz Pentium.  VNC almost worked.

I may try my hand at my own COCO emulator written in C for X-11/MOTIF or a
VT340/REGIS platform.  A VT340/REGIS implementation would allow it to be
accessed from a TELNET session.  The O.S. I would be testing it on would be
OpenVMS.

Getting a cross compiler working right now would be more useful though.

-John
wb8tyw at qsl.net
Personal Opinion Only