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Contiki

Started by Ygdrazil, 18:01, 03 December 14

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Ygdrazil


TFM

Yes, there are couple of threads about it already.
TFM of FutureSoft
Also visit the CPC and Plus users favorite OS: FutureOS - The Revolution on CPC6128 and 6128Plus

PulkoMandy

Well, I think we're due for a "10 years later" update!

I had some time to spend on Contiki the last two weekends.

It is now running from ROM which frees up 11K more of RAM for applications. And it is also updated to SDCC 4.2, which allows to be a little faster and use a bit less memory as well. In total, Contiki now leaves about 41K of main RAM free for apps to be loaded in. And some other bugs were also fixed.

You can read about my recent hacking here: https://pulkomandy.tk/_/_Hacks%20and%20stuff/_Keeping%20Contiki%201.x%20alive

And download it here: https://pulkomandy.tk/downloads/contiki-1.4.zip

Is it useful? Probably not in its current form. The main useful thing would be the network support, I guess? And I have not started on that yet. And there are all the other things on the TODO list...

Well, see you in 10 years for another update  :laugh:

Prodatron

#3
So the OS requires around 7KB ram for system variables/memory?

GRAPHICAL Z80 MULTITASKING OPERATING SYSTEM

XeNoMoRPH

your amstrad news source in spanish language : https://auamstrad.es

PulkoMandy

It looks like I have more things to fix in the code to draw the window borders :(

The memory usage is mainly from the CPC firmware which is still running. Contiki provides additional services: GUI, multitasking, malloc-style memory allocation.

I don't fully understand how it all works yet, for example it seems a lot of the code for the GUI drawing is duplicated into each app when really they could call the existing code that's available in the ROM. Not sure why that is at the moment.

PulkoMandy

I have updated the download to fix the thing where it just draws vertical lines for a while.

Just some extra info since you seemed a bit lost about how to use and navigate it. Use the CPC keypad:

F1 to open menus
F4 and F7 to navigate up and down or left and right (both in the menus and in the apps and on the desktop)
RETURN to activate the currently highlighted (black) button, icon, etc.

There is a possibility for a mouse driver but I have not done it yet. It would sure be easier to click on things with a normal cursor.

zhulien

is there any documentation how to code something in z80 on contiki?  or do you have to use c?

ZbyniuR

We have SymbOS, FutureOS and few starter program for every mass storage devices. 
Do we really need yet another OS?

In Commodore version Contiki only thing I like is rainbow on background. :)
In STARS, TREK is better than WARS.

PulkoMandy

It is designed to use C and write portable applications that will run on all systems from the same sourcecode.

Do we need it? No, not really. The network support may be useful, if someone writes a driver for some CPC networking hardware. Then you could do IRC, telnet and FTP with it.

The network background relies on a C64 video mode with 320x200 pixels and up to 16 colors (but with block constraints). So on the CPC it is not really possible to do the same. But it could look a bit more like the VNC version (not exactly, because this use more than 4 colors and more pixels than I can fit on the CPC display):


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