[fpc-pascal] writing device driver using FPC
Vinzent Hoefler
JeLlyFish.software at gmx.net
Thu Apr 5 09:59:01 CEST 2007
On Thursday 05 April 2007 07:36, Michael Van Canneyt wrote:
> On Thu, 5 Apr 2007, Bisma Jayadi wrote:
> > Writing device driver for windows using Delphi is almost impossible
> > since Delphi can't produce .sys files. Is it the same case for FPC?
> > Can FPC produce .sys file and write device drivers for any OSes
> > (not just windows)? TIA.
>
> Well. FPC can be used to write an operating system, so writing a
> device driver is in theory possible.
>
> Mostly, this would mean writing an RTL which runs inside a kernel,
> which means writing routines to handle IO and routines to handle
> memory management from the kernel interfaces.
And it would mean writing a C to Pascal conversion of an ever changing
kernel interface.
> I think for Unix-type interfaces that would be enough.
No. Especially with a Linux 2.6 kernel where you are supposed to link
with some "kernel object" file and an ever changing binary interface
mostly defined as C-macros.
At least you need an additional C-wrapper or you're really lost.
> For Windows,
> there is the additional problem of producing a .sys file, which would
> mean some changes to the internal linker.
In which way are they special? I don't have a working "objdump" here, so
I can't say in which they are different from the "normal" executable
files on Windows. I mean, they're still called .sys but other than in
the old DOS-days they're also PE-executables or whatever they're
called. ;)
Vinzent.
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