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DS development > PREX

#94984 - Inopia - Thu Jul 27, 2006 5:23 am

I'm too busy this summer to have a go at it, but take a look at this:

http://prex.sourceforge.net/

it's a tiny RTOS with a kernel that fits in 25k. It's got multithreading, memory management (with a NOMMU mode), drivers, the whole package.

There's a GBA port already, and I've looked at the codetree and it's really clean and nice so a DS port shouldn't be all that difficult (especially since the DS and GBA share so many hardware features)

Since the whole thing is set up with posix in mind, writing some drivers for the filesystem (chism's lib), wifi (sgtstair's lib) and video/sound/input should be a breeze for anyone who has ever coded a linux driver.

I think a tiny OS like PREX is much more suited for the DS than say, linux. Although I commend the DSLinux guys for getting it done, I doubt it will ever be useful for anything other than showing off the boot sequence to your friends.

PREX on the other hand could enable us to have a real PDA-style firmware for the DS. Running an MP3 player and an MSN client at the same time, with nitrotracker in the background waiting for inspiration to come would indeed be useful.

The hurdles that'd have to be taken here are the initial kernel port, the drivers and some manner of switching between threads (locking and unlocking the video device etc).

Your thoughts?

#94986 - swimgod - Thu Jul 27, 2006 5:46 am

this project should prove to be interesting :D

hope it comes out as good as posible!
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#94987 - tepples - Thu Jul 27, 2006 6:04 am

Inopia wrote:
Running an MP3 player and an MSN client at the same time, with nitrotracker in the background waiting for inspiration to come would indeed be useful.

Watch out. If you get inspiration while listening to an MP3, it's probably copyrighted inspiration and could land your backside in court.
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