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A lot would need to change with the language to make it suitable for OS development I keep hearing this, or statements along these lines. But I never see an ex

by ehsanu1 14y ago

A lot would need to change with the language to make it suitable for OS development I keep hearing this, or statements along these lines. But I never see an explanation for this. Performance? Managing memory from other processes? Bit twiddling required to create device drivers? Something else? Are these insurmountable?

pnathan 14y ago
To write an OS, you need to have a few things: - ability to manually access memory - ability to use assembly and translate said assembly into the high-level language - ability to install interrupts You probably also want the ability to precisely constrain the amount of memory a block of code uses. I suppose there are other nice to haves as well: e.g., GC will need to be fairly controllable. I see no practical reason why a Lisp can't be used to write an OS, but that Lisp will need a few extensions from the usual modern Lisp capabilities.
- JonnieCache 14y ago
  >- ability to use assembly and translate said assembly into the high-level language Can you elaborate as to exactly what you mean here?
  - pnathan 14y ago
    In C, I can do something like this (pardon my rusty x86/intel syntax): int variable = 0xdeadbeef; __asm { ldw eax, $(variable) # load from variable int 0x3 # trip interrupt.. maybe read from a IO port or something. stw $(variable), $eax # get result, put into C variable } return variable; This allows me to express certain things to the computer that are outside the range of expressibility of the language model. What I would like to be able to do in Lisp is to execute the semantic equivalent of the above code fragment. I've considered hacking it into SBCL, but I have had higher priorities so far.
- mtrimpe 14y ago
  This would be a good start. (mov :ax :ds) (push :cx)
- masklinn 14y ago
  > - ability to use assembly and translate said assembly into the high-level language Not at all, lisp machines used custom silicon implementing lisp in hardware, I believe even the microcode was lisp. > I suppose there are other nice to haves as well: e.g., GC will need to be fairly controllable. If you're coding the hardware to the language, parts of the GC can be hardware-supported directly. > I see no practical reason why a Lisp can't be used to write an OS Especially since it has been used to write OSes, multiple times.
  - pnathan 14y ago
    Okay, I was making the assumption of using standard x86-style hardware. :-)

by ehsanu1 14y ago

pnathan 14y ago

To write an OS, you need to have a few things: - ability to manually access memory - ability to use assembly and translate said assembly into the high-level language - ability to install interrupts You probably also want the ability to precisely constrain the amount of memory a block of code uses. I suppose there are other nice to haves as well: e.g., GC will need to be fairly controllable. I see no practical reason why a Lisp can't be used to write an OS, but that Lisp will need a few extensions from the usual modern Lisp capabilities.

JonnieCache 14y ago
>- ability to use assembly and translate said assembly into the high-level language Can you elaborate as to exactly what you mean here?
- pnathan 14y ago
  In C, I can do something like this (pardon my rusty x86/intel syntax): int variable = 0xdeadbeef; __asm { ldw eax, $(variable) # load from variable int 0x3 # trip interrupt.. maybe read from a IO port or something. stw $(variable), $eax # get result, put into C variable } return variable; This allows me to express certain things to the computer that are outside the range of expressibility of the language model. What I would like to be able to do in Lisp is to execute the semantic equivalent of the above code fragment. I've considered hacking it into SBCL, but I have had higher priorities so far.
mtrimpe 14y ago
This would be a good start. (mov :ax :ds) (push :cx)
masklinn 14y ago
> - ability to use assembly and translate said assembly into the high-level language Not at all, lisp machines used custom silicon implementing lisp in hardware, I believe even the microcode was lisp. > I suppose there are other nice to haves as well: e.g., GC will need to be fairly controllable. If you're coding the hardware to the language, parts of the GC can be hardware-supported directly. > I see no practical reason why a Lisp can't be used to write an OS Especially since it has been used to write OSes, multiple times.
- pnathan 14y ago
  Okay, I was making the assumption of using standard x86-style hardware. :-)