>On 2002-01-09 20:57:16, Anonymous wrote:
>>On 2002-01-03 13:44:28, krillzip wrote:
>>Do anyone have any links to documents
>>on the PowerPC architecture.
>>About pmode and multitasking.
>
>Well, to start with, which PowerPC? There are dozens of processors of various kinds.
>Also, the different systems base one them. How you code it will depend on the particular implementation.
In the nearest future the most interesting implementation would be the PowerPC in Macs.
The primary goal would be compability from PPC 603e and further on to G4. To support the
altivec module will not be interesting until I do some kind of mathLib.
>For example, code designed for an IBM PowerPC series wouldn't work on a Power Mac, and vis
>versa. Similarly, while most older PPC code will run on a G4, most new software won't run on the older models.
>
>So, to answer you, we'd need to know what you've got, and what you plan to do with it.
>
>AFAIK, PPC doesn't have a protected mode - or rather, it doesn't have a 'real' mode,
>being a true 32-bit processor. IIRC, there's only one memory mode, a flat 32-bit address space with hardware management.
I haven't read the manuals I found very deeply, but wath I understand from the manuals is that there are support for
something called "address translation" that supports some kind of segmentation and paging mechanism.
I don't know if that only is supported on newer processors such G3/G4 or also on old processors 603e/604e.
The Mac OS X has preemptive multitasking and protected memory support. So it must be possible in some way to implement
true multitasking and memory protection.
The goal is to develop a small kernel with the only basics of multitasking, protected memory, and some other stuff.
But also port it to as many processor platforms as possible.
>On the Motorola web site, there's plenty of
>documentation on the different models of the
>PowerPC. Each has it's own user guide,
>programmer's reference, and sample bootup code
>for the development environment. Here are a few
>from the MC740 page
>(
http://e-www.motorola.com/webapp/sps/si ... 7M0ylg8ZH6):
>
>"Programmers Reference Guide for 32-Bit Implementations of the PowerPC Architecture"
>(
http://e-www.motorola.com/brdata/PDFDB/docs/MPCPRG.pdf)
>
>"MPC750 and MPC740 Microprocessors Fact Sheet"
>(
http://e-www.motorola.com/brdata/PDFDB/ ... 50FACT.pdf)
>
>HTH.
>"Minimal Boot Sequence for Executing Compiled
>C Programs on Devices that Implement the PowerPC
>Architecture"
>(
http://e-www.motorola.com/brdata/PDFDB/docs/AN1809.pdf)
