Maybe you should have a look to MSEide too. MSEide has been designed not only for MSEgui / Free Pascal projects but also for development of Pascal- C- and mixed-language embedded projects with the GNU tool chain. For example I used it do develop CPU32/BDM and ATMEL AVR32 projects. You probably know that already...

Martin

Wee seem to want to do an embedded project with an 68 Processor (in fact a "Fido" chip by Innovasic, that provides the "CPU32" variant of the 68K CPU).

This project does not use a normal OS, it just is a "program", no GUI, no standard API.

The SDK for the chip supports the gnu tool chain and can run gdb (optionally in Eclipse) via a JTAG in circuit debug adapter.

AFAIK, FPC decently supports cross-compiling to 68K.

Is it possible/viable to use the Lazarus IDE for writing and compiling the code ?

Is it possible to configure the Lazarus IDE to use gdb in cross-mode ?

Thanks,
-Michael

Michael Schnell wrote

AFAIK, FPC decently supports cross-compiling to 68K.

You need to use a pre 2.0 version of FPC for this. The 68k code isn't enabled and/or maintained in current versions.

Of course you can try to revive it again :D

Regards,
Sven

Does that also apply to cross builds? Could Lazarus built with a current FPC drive a 1.x compiler, or is it too different?

Of course you can try to revive it again :D

You'll need to try. I have never used the 1.x series. I came to FPC and Lazarus and the beginning of FPCs 2.2 series.
But perhaps the Lazarus devs will help you to get it working if it currently doesn't. :)

Regards,
Sven

/I'm/ not trying it :-) I'm still trying to find time to get back onto FPC MIPS and at least in that case there's viable target hardware knocking around.

Mark Morgan Lloyd wrote

Does that also apply to cross builds? Could Lazarus built with a current FPC drive a 1.x compiler, or is it too different?

Lazarus build what? 3rd party applications or itself?

Itself or LCL apps in general for sure not, because the latest LCL requires FPC 2.4.2+

I'd say that Mark meant compiling a non-LCL application for M68k from within Lazarus.

The question is whether Lazarus does check the version that is reported by FPC and is restricted to a certain minimal version... also is M68k part of the platform selection comboboxes? Which command line parameters did change from 1.x up to 2.4.4 that Lazarus uses?

Regards,
Sven

When I last looked trunk required >2.4.4. However the point I'm making- or rather the question I'm asking- is whether a recent version of Lazarus could drive a significantly older FPC or whether the compiler options etc. have changed too much.

As far as I remember there was some change in the combinations of -FU and -FE. I don't remember the details. I doubt that this is critical.

The codetools rules for the FPC sources may need adjustments.

The IDE asks the compiler via the -i option about its target platform. I don't know if this option already worked the same in FPC 1.x.

Mattias

MSEide can be used for the purpose. MSEide can drive any compiler. Recognized compiler error formats are Free Pascal and gcc.

Martin

Sounds good.
Thanks,
-Michael

Seems viable-

What is the reason why 68K is not supported in the newer versions ?

-Michael

Mark Morgan Lloyd wrote

Does that also apply to cross builds? Could Lazarus built with a current FPC drive a 1.x compiler, or is it too different?

I don't think I would need to do that. I suppose I just need to point Lazarus to the compiler to be used for ARCH 68K.

Am I wrong ?

-Michael

In summary, it sounds as though it might be less work to tweak FPC v1 to (if necessary) support the -i option and emit standard error messages than to do a full port to v2. Although I must say that the time I've been able to put into MIPS so far has been very rewarding.

Demand? I think this thread is the first time I've seen 68K mentioned for many years except in the context of programming classic Palms (for which there is, it appears, a native Pascal compiler).

I see that the Linux kernel still supports the architecture, and that Qemu supports a variant. But I don't think I've ever seen a 68K system on e.g. eBay... I lie, somebody was trying to give away an old workstation on a private conferencing system I use (CIX) but it had something like 2Mb RAM.

Michael Schnell wrote

What is the reason why 68K is not supported in the newer versions ?

zero contributors and zero maintainers for such a port. Just the same reason for every other missing feature.

Recipe for jugged hare: first catch your hare :-)

You're going to need a cross-binary of FPC v1 targeting 68K.

If I were doing it- which I'm not- I'd first start off with something like https://wiki.debian.org/Aranym onto which I'd try installing http://www.freepascal.org/down/old/m68k-linux-ftp.freepascal.org.var If you could get that combination working then you'd have some confidence that you'd got a working compiler.

Then you could try compiling the corresponding sources into something that would run on x86, i.e. as a cross-compiler. To do this you'd probably need to start off with an x86 FPC v1. Then finally you could investigate whether Lazarus could control the result.

Alternatively investigate whether the current sources can be got working. My ongoing notes at
http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Native_MIPS_Systems#Mainline_MIPS_Port might help with binutils etc.

In any event please write up what you do for the wiki to get it "into the record".

Mark Morgan Lloyd wrote

...

Thanks for the pointers

In any event please write up what you do for the wiki to get it "into the record".

Of course I'll be posting here when starting this :-) .

-Michael

AFAIK, Amiga is 68K. See: http://blog.alb42.de/ (8/10/2011)

-Michael

I've added a stub to
http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Qemu_and_other_emulators for Aranym.

68K guest now running Debian "Sid":

root at pye-dev-07g:~ # cat /proc/cpuinfo
CPU: 68040
MMU: 68040
FPU: 68040
Clocking: 14.9MHz
BogoMips: 9.99
Calibration: 49984 loops

With that level of performance I'd not suggest trying to run a graphical login, but it should be adequate to check out FPC v1.

Hope that helps :-)

Probably not. You just need to craft that 68k compiler :-)

The Motorola Coldfire series was popular say 3-5 years ago. However nobody really put a lot of time into it to create a port for 68k.

It used to be fairly easy, since on mac fairs they gave them away for free.

Easier than Sparc or Mips that never made consumer hardware.

Some TVs are running on MIPS with Linux now... just as a sidenote (I personally own a TV with an ARM and a Linux :P )

Regards,
Sven

Also OpenWRT reflashes popular MIPS-based routers, and the earlier Raq routers were MIPS and could be repurposed. We missed a bin SGI visualisation system being sold locally on eBay a year ago, went for ?10 :-(

But the viability of the Chinese Loongson MIPS-based chip is very much an open question.

Sven Barth wrote

Some TVs are running on MIPS with Linux now... just as a sidenote (I personally own a TV with an ARM and a Linux :P )

I was very disappointed to find that the settop box from Deutsche Telekom I have uses WinCE :(.

-Michael

Fixing that can be your next job but one :-)

OK, I've got Debian on 68k as I've documented, and while it's very much a minimal installation all the standard development tools are available. It's probably not powerful enough to run a full compiler build in reasonable time, but assuming the correctness of GCC (i.e. that Linux is actually compiled to the right opcodes) it's an adequate test for any other compiler.

I was going to install FPC v1 to check it ran natively before getting back onto other things but it's no longer available at http://www.freepascal.org/down/old/m68k-linux-ftp.freepascal.org.var

Anybody know where it can be found?

Yeah yeah, I got a Linksys wrt too :-)

just as a sidenote (I personally own a TV with an ARM and a Linux :P )

I do have a Linux based TV too, I don't know what CPU, but the TV producer also sells ARMs.

Since I live in Eindhoven, the brand can probably be guessed easily :-)

Felipe Monteiro de Carvalho wrote

On Thu, Sep 15, 2011 at 10:01 AM, Michael Schnell wrote: > What is the reason why 68K is not supported in the newer versions ? zero contributors and zero maintainers for such a port. Just the same reason for every other missing feature.

What I wanted to ask is: What needs to be done to make it work ?

-Michael

Start off by telling us if it will compile :-) See my Wiki page on MIPS since I'm starting off at a very similar position.

Michael Schnell wrote

What I wanted to ask is: What needs to be done to make it work ?

There is no guide about how to port FPC, but I started a wiki page years ago:

http://wiki.freepascal.org/Porting_Free_Pascal

But I was porting to a new operating system, which is different from a new architecture.

You should start by first finding out what is necessary to make a port and then document this in that wiki page ;)

You can get a clue of what is necessary by searching the FPC viewcv for when MIPS was merged for example.

Michael Schnell wrote

>> What is the reason why 68K is not supported in the newer versions ? > zero contributors and zero maintainers for such a port. Just the same > reason for every other missing feature. What I wanted to ask is: What needs to be done to make it work ?

Nearly everything. Afaik there are some 2.0 reg definitions for 68k, and that is about it. And probably outdated by several years.

The 1.0.x codegenerator is totally different. It can be used in some cases to see what it did in some cases, but for the rest it means starting over.

That sounds quite disappointing :(

Thanks for the warning.

-Michael

Seconded :-( The v1 compiler does appear to work though, so it could be that "plan b" (see whether the Lazarus IDE can drive v1) has a chance.

That depends on what you want to do with it. I personally wouldn't bother. Either do it right, or forget about it.

Marco van de Voort wrote

That depends on what you want to do with it. I personally wouldn't bother. Either do it right, or forget about it.

Yep. I am quite sure that _if_ I am going to need it I'll try to get the current compiler version going.

Thanks,
-Michael