[GEM Development] [GEM-DEV] GEM 32

[John Elliott]

> I think a starting point for you is probably to have a chat with John.
> He has done a lot of the work to modernize GEM.  His site is here:
> http://www.seasip.info/Gem/index.html

  You rrrrang, milord?

  For what it's worth, I did get the AES building in DJGPP some years ago. I
emphasise 'building' rather than 'running' -- it turned out the 16->32 bit
transitions somewhere in the DPMI host or the libraries weren't re-entrant,
which put something of a spanner in the works.

  If anyone wants to write a proper 32-bit PC-GEM, they'll have to consider:

* What kernel it's hosted on -- DOS, Linux, something else?

* Memory protection. The AES thinks it _is_ the kernel and can see into the
 memory of all the applications running under it. If you want to get this
 working on a proper multitasking OS, you'll have to come up with some way
 round this -- either using shared memory, or marshalling object trees to
 and fro. (If the latter, the 16<-->32 marshalling code in my DJGPP bindings
 may help you).

* How are drivers implemented? The current ones are all 16-bit asm jobs.

-- 
John Elliott