Volunteer assembly developer needed for FAT12 driver: closed

[giszo]

Take your pick, I just need a FAT12 floppy writing driver!

Why don't you write your own? What is the good/fun in OS development if you wait for others to write code for you?

[inflater]

Sometimes, it's fun as getting page faults or GPF's every time.

Troy, eh, I could code it for you if I had the time, but the thing is that I code in a different way, it could be unreadable and "a black box code" for you. When I developed a FAT12 driver for Derrick, I always used the osdev wiki. There may be some glitches, but isn't that enough?

[Troy Martin]

Take your pick, I just need a FAT12 floppy writing driver!

Why don't you write your own? What is the good/fun in OS development if you wait for others to write code for you?

I've tried, I've failed, I've researched, failed again, you get the point.

inflater: some of my code is written in such a compressed way that some people can get kinda confused at it. Nevertheless, please and thank you, blackboxiness doesn't matter. I mean, hell, M$'s "Shared Source" is confusing enough that the average programmer will faint by looking at it.

[Love4Boobies]

If you have any problems, there's a lot of open source drivers around and they'll give you an idea on how stuff should go. Or... just tell us what kind of problems you're having; that's why OSDev.org is here, right?

[pcmattman]

If you really want a FAT12 driver, I can translate my C FAT(12/16/32) driver into ASM.

Of course, it won't be overnight, but you'll still get it. All I need is a method to read sectors by an LBA address (not CHS) and I can do it.

[Troy Martin]

Matt: Awesome, I just need a fat12 writing driver (reading not needed though!)

Thanks,
Troy

[pcmattman]

Too easy! PM me for more discussion (unless you want to choose someone else, which I'm all good with ).

[Love4Boobies]

Say Troy, have you considered taking a look over FreeDOS' implementation?

[Troy Martin]

FreeDOS does their FAT12 driver in assembly?

[Dex]

You could take a look at bootprog code as its a is a basic fat12 driver in less than 512bytes, you will just need to add dir etc.
http://alexfru.chat.ru/epm.html#bootprog
Also take alook at OS dev for dummys
http://alexfru.chat.ru/epm.html#los4d

[Troy Martin]

You see, I have a reading driver, I just need a writing one.

[Dex]

Then take a look at DexOS.

[IanSeyler]

MikeOS has a FAT12 file writing command as well, doesn't it?

-Ian

[Troy Martin]

Ian: oh yes, but I'd like to keep my MikeOS code down to a minimum, my FAT12 reading driver and bootloader code is from MikeOS as well...

You think I should use Mike's driver for now and just rewrite it myself as the time passes?

[Alboin]

Hola,

You think I should use Mike's driver for now and just rewrite it myself as the time passes?

You appear to be at a crossroads of sorts. (And I'm afraid it's not an epic Clapton cover.)

On one hand, you can very easily use MikeOS code, and continue on your merry way. However, how are you to implement more lengthy sections that are to follow? FAT12 is at the low end simple spectrum of file systems. Things only get more complicated. Moreover, when you're taking a considerable amount of other people's code, why even bother with osdev at all?

The other option is to start...writing code. If you fail, try, again. Your mistakes are completely worthless if you don't learn from them.

So, in my opinion, no. Don't use anyone else's code. If you can't do it, you can't do it. Try something else, and come back to it later, or study to your mind's breaking point to figure out how. Using other's code because you 'can't do it' is not the point of sharing code. (That's to save us from reinventing the wheel\and or saving a lot of time doing something we could already do should we have cared to.)

It's like a credit card: if you can't afford something...you can't afford it! You don't deserve it!

Good Luck.