StackOverflow2013

Note that there are some explanatory texts on larger screens.

plurals

PO
text
Body
copied!<p>It's worth saying that PE is a very diverse format than ELF. Not only a few bytes to modify... the whole layout and library access is diverse, and binding is totally diverse.</p> <p>In order to boot Delphi application in console mode, you can put a small DOS system (take a look at FreeDOS, for instance), then run your Delphi application using for instance <a href="http://delphi.icm.edu.pl/ftp/d50free/dwpl.htm" rel="noreferrer">DWPL</a>. DWPL allows to run native 32-bit protected mode DOS programs with Delphi 5-7 using the WDOSX DOS extender as the core. I used this in some old hardware with a network adapter, and it worked like a charm. If you are interested in it, I could post some updated code of DWPL.</p> <p>For such targets, you should take a look at <a href="http://freepascal.org/" rel="noreferrer">Free Pascal</a>. By nature, you can customize it to whatever target you want. There is even diverse draft Operating Systems written using FPC. See for instance <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/toro/" rel="noreferrer">Toro</a> or <a href="http://www.trumpet.com.au/index.php/products/classios.html" rel="noreferrer">ClassiOS</a> - the latest uses Delphi executables as source.</p> <p>You can see the boot code of Toro <a href="http://toro.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/toro/toro-x86_64/boot/boot.s?revision=51&content-type=text%2Fplain" rel="noreferrer">from here</a>, and a "<a href="http://toro.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/toro/toro-x86_64/toro.pas?revision=58&content-type=text%2Fplain" rel="noreferrer">main program</a>" source code created with it.</p> <p>But for direct booting applications, booting is not so difficult. The real problem is the hardware layer. The BIOS gives very little access to it. Just for the network layer, you'll have to take a look at <a href="http://www.etherboot.org/wiki/index.php" rel="noreferrer">EtherBoot</a> sites and such to get some low-level network access... but it could be very time consuming to rewrite all those drivers by hand!</p> <p>In short: all those "pure pascal" OS are only theoretical, running a console and some low-performance network (emulating a poor network adapter like NE2000 or such). So those "pascal" OS are only proof of concept. FAR away from a working solution! But very nice technological challenge, in all cases, very inspiring.</p> <p>Why reinvent the wheel? If you want a light and fast system, use a custom Linux kernel.</p> <p>Then use <a href="http://crosskylix.untergrund.net/" rel="noreferrer">CrossKylix</a> to compile your Delphi application (with no User Interface) into Linux, or even better Free Pascal.</p>

Querying!

Guidance

An individual column

Larger individual text columns get their own page to allow for proper reading.

SQuiL has stopped working due to an internal error.

If you are curious you may find further information in the browser console, which is accessible through the devtools (F12).

Reload