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Porting the Framework to x86

description

Hi there!
 
I've been following the Micro Framework ever since it was first released.
And ever since I've been hankering to write a managed kernel, MF has assumed greater significance.
Basically, my plan is to write a kernel in pure C#/CIL, which runs JIT.
So there's some sort of bootable runtime, which runs the kernel, written in pure C#.
That way, you get all the advantages of code security, automatic memory management, and so on - something that you don't see in other managed kernels, such as Cosmos.
 
But there's a catch.
MF only runs on ARM chips right?
So I plan to port it to the x86 architecture.
I'd be grateful for any tips, ideas, anything that comes to your mind.
 
Thanks :)

comments

gusissa wrote Oct 8, 2010 at 2:08 AM

I would rather see that on Cortex-A8 :) x86 is too bulky to fin in my pocket.

HackerLabs wrote Oct 8, 2010 at 4:36 PM

Well...there's always the Atom.
Small...and pure x86 :D

JanKucera wrote Oct 14, 2010 at 6:55 AM

I think Microsofted ported it to x86 from the very beginning as well - that's what Microsoft.SPOT.CLR.dll is for...

HackerLabs wrote Oct 17, 2010 at 4:01 AM

Seriously?
That would save me a lot of trouble!
I'll look into this one, then.

Thanks, mate :)

percramer wrote Jul 5, 2011 at 8:34 AM

Hi,

has anybody ever finished this? I would love to be able to run it on an atom (or an x86) bassed board.

alphons wrote Jul 13, 2011 at 10:49 AM

Just installed the ".NET Micro Framework Porting Kit Version 4.1"..... trying to be optimistic
So basicly we have to write the Common Intermediate Language to X86 bridge, maybe there are things we can borrow from the SharpOS or Cosmos group. Who likes to join in?

iexpress wrote Jun 2, 2012 at 12:50 AM

I'm on it! Kinda stupid they deviated from ia-32 for arm.

Here's what I'm going to try:
  1. make bootable usb partition image with the micro framework in a folder in it
  2. create ramdisk
  3. send .net framework to ramdisk
4 add ramdisk/framework to PATH variable.
  1. see if the micro framework executables can be run, testing out some hello world app first to see if we can do it from bootup.
maybe there's a way to Ngen or save as .com
or lastly build a micro msil to ia-32 converter.

I can't believe they actually skipped over IA-32 and tailored it to only arm.
They probably did this on purpose to keep us from making operating systems.

They had to have initially made it target to ia-32.

I'll do some test runs on it and see if it can be run a-la-cart by itself out of windows in something like dos. From what they're saying, the framework can be included in a bootable project. question is, can it work in dos or will it crash saying can't be run in msdos mode.

LBacaj wrote Apr 13 at 10:04 AM

Anything on this yet? It would be worthwhile to have a super lightweight is on x86 that can crunch numbers in c#

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