QUOTE (Madis731 @ May 31, 2008 05:44 pm)
Raises some questions:
1) How tedious would x86 to ARM be - its a totally different preception? One is some CISC&RISC wierd combination, but the other purely RISC. ARM for FASM has been made, it helps a bit.
2) Does ARM have any legacy videodriver capabilities, keyboard etc? Even now we're dealing with driver issues, then it would become even more serious.
3) What does new generation bring? If only newer instructions, then its doable, but when the architecture changes - I think ASM is too low-level to be driven to these kind of projects. Sorry!
4) I'm a total n00b in ARM-related stuff, so do you know about multitasking capabilities support in hardware (of course it has some interrupts to do it in software, but...)?

Thanks for the thoughts!

Madis,
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Raises some questions:
1) How tedious would x86 to ARM be - its a totally different preception? One is some CISC&RISC wierd combination, but the other purely RISC. ARM for FASM has been made, it helps a bit.
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ARM9xx is relatively clean. As is ARM11.

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2) Does ARM have any legacy videodriver capabilities, keyboard etc? Even now we're dealing with driver issues, then it would become even more serious.
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Most ARM implementations use VGA and higher LCD hardware. In fact, many ARM SBCs have built-in LCD and touchscreen headers.

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3) What does new generation bring? If only newer instructions, then its doable, but when the architecture changes - I think ASM is too low-level to be driven to these kind of projects. Sorry!
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Well, it *is* true that most current e-ink devices use embedded Linux - with support for nano-X Windows! So C/C++ might be more acceptable. But you've got to admit that a 42KB kernel is rather small - and that implements a basic X-Windows.

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4) I'm a total n00b in ARM-related stuff, so do you know about multitasking capabilities support in hardware (of course it has some interrupts to do it in software, but...)?
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I think that's quite do-able.

Derek