[Debian-coldfire-devel] Progress?

[Wouter Verhelst]

On Fri, Jun 02, 2006 at 12:42:54PM +0200, Aurélien GÉRÔME wrote:
> Hi Wouter,
> On Fri, Jun 02, 2006 at 10:20:58AM +0000, Wouter Verhelst wrote:
> > To repeat:
> > * Binutils/compiler changes (need to be pushed upstream)
> > * Glibc changes (same, need to be pushed upstream)
> > * archive rebuild, test test test
> > * optionally, kernel changes so that it implements classic m68k-specific
> >   opcodes by emulation (would allow us to start compiling with coldfire
> >   machines right away rather than having to wait for the above three
> >   points to be finished)
> 
> It also occurs to me that Coldfire has some opcodes legacy m68k
> has not.

Yes, but none of those are of great importance, and can be worked
around. Apart from the FF1 opcode ("Find First One", an opcode to find
the first 1-bit in an operator), they all belong to things such as the
MAC/EMAC ((Enhanced) Multiply ACcumulator, for hardware-accelerated
vector math) or the crypto accelerator units.

Obviously it'd be nice to get liboil and friends to use those opcodes,
but regular programs that don't need vector math can live perfectly fine
without them.

> > [...can't help with Freescale's sales policy...]
> 
> If you took what I said as a rant, I am sorry: it was not my intention.

I didn't :)

[...]
> My wide guess is Freescale stopped to sell the lite board, because
> it was MCF5484-based and they just released a new MCF5485 processor
> which they sell with the "full" board, known as EVB, at $850 all
> stuff included.

I don't think that's the case. Could be wrong, though.

> > Actually, there is yet another option: one of us with a working
> > installation could give you an account on the board for hacking, so that
> > you could work by remote.
> > 
> > I'd be willing to do this, but I'd need to rearrange some things then,
> > first.
> 
> Thanks a lot, it is very kind of you. However, I think I can arrange
> something with Sven, because we live at 1 hour of train from each
> other. :)

Sounds like a better solution indeed.

-- 
Fun will now commence
  -- Seven Of Nine, "Ashes to Ashes", stardate 53679.4