Tom St Denis wrote:
> 
> Mat Nieuwenhoven wrote:
> 
>>Although it isn't advertised, the OpenWatcom development version has some
>>very limited PPC support: assembler (called wasppc), C compiler ( wccppc) and
>>compile/link (wclppc), plus the capability to do remote debugging (don't know
>>off-hand which links are supported for that). You can cross compiler from
>>OS/2 and Win32, some tools are available from DOS as well. No C libraries as
>>yet I think but if you're doing assembler you won't need them. You'll need
>>the latest daily sources and build the lot (about 5 hours on a 400 MHz
>>machine), but you only need to do this once. If you need more info go to the
>>user group at news.openwatcom.org.
> 
> 
> Thanks for the reply but it's totally not what I was looking for.  I
> only run Linux and I need GCC since the library I'm working on builds
> with GCC only [but on a variety of platforms.  Personally I don't care
> for proprietary compilers].
> 
> The funny thing is all I need is actually fairly trivial compared to
> what the average eval board is... seems nobody just makes "simple"
> boards anymore...
> 

Get a Mac Mini with OS X v10.4 Tiger. You'll get a full GNU
toolset with the O/S.

-- 

Tauno Voipio
tauno voipio (at) iki fi

On 1 Jul 2005 13:24:21 -0700, Tom St Denis wrote:

>
>
>Mat Nieuwenhoven wrote:
>> Although it isn't advertised, the OpenWatcom development version has some
>> very limited PPC support: assembler (called wasppc), C compiler ( wccppc) and
>> compile/link (wclppc), plus the capability to do remote debugging (don't know
>> off-hand which links are supported for that). You can cross compiler from
>> OS/2 and Win32, some tools are available from DOS as well. No C libraries as
>> yet I think but if you're doing assembler you won't need them. You'll need
>> the latest daily sources and build the lot (about 5 hours on a 400 MHz
>> machine), but you only need to do this once. If you need more info go to the
>> user group at news.openwatcom.org.
>
>Thanks for the reply but it's totally not what I was looking for.  I
>only run Linux and I need GCC since the library I'm working on builds
>with GCC only [but on a variety of platforms.  Personally I don't care
>for proprietary compilers].

Understood, but your initial post didn't mention Linux, just GCC. OpenWatcom
isn't proprietary, it's open source (was made open source 4 years ago or so).
It runs on Dos, OS/2, Win32 and Linux (not all tools yet, no graphical ones),
and produces code (can cross-compile) for all those as well (Linux no
multithreading or graphical stuff). Its debugger is way ahead of gdb. As
Watcom's Linux-hosted ppc tool I only see the ppc assembler, probably linker
works as well; but if you need to have a gcc lib it's not gonna work.
Anyway, good luck with your project, I'm using PICs myself (privately).

Mat Nieuwenhoven

Mat Nieuwenhoven wrote:
> Although it isn't advertised, the OpenWatcom development version has some
> very limited PPC support: assembler (called wasppc), C compiler ( wccppc) and
> compile/link (wclppc), plus the capability to do remote debugging (don't know
> off-hand which links are supported for that). You can cross compiler from
> OS/2 and Win32, some tools are available from DOS as well. No C libraries as
> yet I think but if you're doing assembler you won't need them. You'll need
> the latest daily sources and build the lot (about 5 hours on a 400 MHz
> machine), but you only need to do this once. If you need more info go to the
> user group at news.openwatcom.org.

Thanks for the reply but it's totally not what I was looking for.  I
only run Linux and I need GCC since the library I'm working on builds
with GCC only [but on a variety of platforms.  Personally I don't care
for proprietary compilers].

The funny thing is all I need is actually fairly trivial compared to
what the average eval board is... seems nobody just makes "simple"
boards anymore...

Tom

On 1 Jul 2005 04:52:20 -0700, Tom St Denis wrote:

>robertwessel2@yahoo.com wrote:
>> Why not get a used Mac?  You can probably get one of the original
>> day-glo iMacs for under $200 (I don't know if those will run OSX
>> though, you might be stuck with OS9).
>
>I want to use OSS tools not apple-ported tools.  I had a mac mini for
>all of about a day.  I screwed up [don't know how] yaboot and then my
>box wouldn't boot of the HD or CD.
>
>Personally I don't care for the OSX box... I just want the cpu so I can
>test some PPC asm.  The idea would be I'd build a recent PPC compiler
>from GCC sources then just load some flat binary to the device hit go
>and time/watch the output.

Although it isn't advertised, the OpenWatcom development version has some
very limited PPC support: assembler (called wasppc), C compiler ( wccppc) and
compile/link (wclppc), plus the capability to do remote debugging (don't know
off-hand which links are supported for that). You can cross compiler from
OS/2 and Win32, some tools are available from DOS as well. No C libraries as
yet I think but if you're doing assembler you won't need them. You'll need
the latest daily sources and build the lot (about 5 hours on a 400 MHz
machine), but you only need to do this once. If you need more info go to the
user group at news.openwatcom.org.

Mat Nieuwenhoven

larwe@larwe.com wrote:
> > The source for your kurobox is down [website moving]...
>
> Grrr. Well, the price was $170-odd for the standard version. There is
> now a newer version, Kuro Box HG, which is slightly faster and sexier
> but basically the same thing.
>
> It's the best-value PPC platform I found (I had the same problem you
> did, with everything being so expensive).

Well if you can email me their phone number or sales email I'll see if
I can ping them.

Thanks,
Tom

> The source for your kurobox is down [website moving]...

Grrr. Well, the price was $170-odd for the standard version. There is
now a newer version, Kuro Box HG, which is slightly faster and sexier
but basically the same thing.

It's the best-value PPC platform I found (I had the same problem you
did, with everything being so expensive).

l...@larwe.com wrote:
> > Basically I want a PPC board [like a PPC405, something that runs the
> > basic 32-bit ISA] where I can upload programs [usually <2MiB] and just
> > test/time them [for writing a bignum math library].
>
> Look at http://www.larwe.com/technical/current.html#kuro (my site) and
> read the first couple of articles there. This hardware platform (<$200)
> might be what you need. It does not have the DB9 serial built in, but
> you can easily add it.

The source for your kurobox is down [website moving]...


Tom

> Basically I want a PPC board [like a PPC405, something that runs the
> basic 32-bit ISA] where I can upload programs [usually <2MiB] and just
> test/time them [for writing a bignum math library].

Look at http://www.larwe.com/technical/current.html#kuro (my site) and
read the first couple of articles there. This hardware platform (<$200)
might be what you need. It does not have the DB9 serial built in, but
you can easily add it.

robertwessel2@yahoo.com wrote:
> Why not get a used Mac?  You can probably get one of the original
> day-glo iMacs for under $200 (I don't know if those will run OSX
> though, you might be stuck with OS9).

I want to use OSS tools not apple-ported tools.  I had a mac mini for
all of about a day.  I screwed up [don't know how] yaboot and then my
box wouldn't boot of the HD or CD.

Personally I don't care for the OSX box... I just want the cpu so I can
test some PPC asm.  The idea would be I'd build a recent PPC compiler
from GCC sources then just load some flat binary to the device hit go
and time/watch the output.

Tom

Tom St Denis wrote:
> I googled this group and the web and haven't found what I'm looking
> for.
>
> Basically I want a PPC board [like a PPC405, something that runs the
> basic 32-bit ISA] where I can upload programs [usually <2MiB] and just
> test/time them [for writing a bignum math library].
>
> The specs are
>
> PPC [such as 405] + DB9 serial + 16MiB of SDRAM + enough flash/rom for
> a boot loader
>
> All I really want from the bootloader is "load" and "go" but
> dump/disassemble would be nice.   I'm looking to spend at most 250$ USD
> on this.
>
> All I've found so far are 1Ghz boards with 3GiB of ram and a 640x480
> LCD, etc, etc, etc.
>
> Any ideas or pointers?


Why not get a used Mac?  You can probably get one of the original
day-glo iMacs for under $200 (I don't know if those will run OSX
though, you might be stuck with OS9).