[Cbe-oss-dev] [PS3] Console display for an Ada OS

[Arnd Bergmann]

On Saturday 14 April 2007, grave at ipno.in2p3.fr wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm coding an operationg system in Ada with the runtime support (exception
> handling, OO, tasks, protected objects). I'm trying to port it to PS3
> (already boot some code on x86 hardware, qemu-ppc, Virtex IIpro ppc405) in
> order to have a cheap 64 bit powerpc hardware at hand.
> 
> I have two different linux tree for PS3, one from debian live
> (http://ps3.keshi.org/debian-live) and one from Geoff Levand. 
>
> I'm trying to sort out the code that can help me to display console messages.

Note that there is no console in the sense you want, only the frame buffer.
Using it is rather complicated, you first need to create pixel data
from your console text and font files in a memory buffer and then
copy that to the graphics hardware using a hypercall.

> Which one do you think I should use for reverse engineering ?

Use Geoff's code from kernel.org, it's the most up-to-date.

> And also to run the PS3 under linux ?

Choose a distro you like and then run the kernel that comes with
it, or also geoff's ps3-linux.git if you want to run your own
builds.

> I have looked for very basic technical documentation without much success,
> can somebody point me to some documentation giving detail about access to
> devices ?

There is no ps3 specific hardware documentation, you have to stick with
the linux code as a reference. 

For the CPU itself, you need the power architecture specification from
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-powarch/ and
the Cell/B.E. documentation from http://cell.scei.co.jp/index_e.html

	Arnd <><