Re: STM32F4 GNAT Run Time System - roadmap

[Simon Wright <simon@pushface.org>]

Jere <jere.groups@gmail.com> writes:

> This is something I should ask about: I am running pure bare metal.
> We won't have SD cards or hard drives.  Everything we do will need to
> run straight on the micro's Flash itself.  We may or may not have
> EEPROMs, but even if we do, we are talking 512K bits (64k bytes) of
> standard EEPROM (so too slow for general use ... 1-5ms write times).
> I am pretty sure there is a FreeRTOS port for my chip (I'll need to
> verify, but I am pretty sure).  Is there a configuration where I am
> able to use the FreeRTOS runtime you made in that context?  Does the
> runtime have all it needs to operate on a baremetal board or do I need
> to have FreeRTOS installed and running similar to windows or Linux
> with an SD card to hold the application executable?  In my ideal
> world, I would simply write an Ada program, compile it, and write it
> straight to the micro's Flash.  I am unsure if the runtime you
> proposed works in that manner or not.  The ravenscar profile based
> runtime provided by AdaCore appears to (I have not had to install an
> OS to use that cross compiler).
>
> That said, I am mostly familiar with straight up bare metal, so a zero
> foot print runtime (if I understand what that entails) would be fine
> as well and maybe preferable due to our timing constraints. I don't
> really need tasking.

My RTS definitely works in the bare-metal environment. However, I'd have
thought your board is on the small side? a fairly small demo used

   $ arm-eabi-size stairwell_arduino_demo
      text	   data	    bss	    dec	    hex	filename
    130716	   1992	  17152	 149860	  24964	stairwell_arduino_demo

If you're happy with zero footprint, check out
http://www.inspirel.com/articles/Ada_On_Cortex.html