Presentations about the Project Environment

Handing in Projects

You are to submit your projects through the department's turn-in system. Proceed as follows:

• Log into http://csnet.cs.tamu.edu. (You may need to establish a VPN connection first; not sure.)
• Follow the "My Courses" link.
• Select CPSC410 or CPSC611 from the given list of courses. you will see the class information and buttons for turn-in.
• Use the buttons to upload your files.
• NOTE: Subsequent submissions overwrite your earlier submissions for the same assignment!!
• If you have more than one file to submit, compress them into one file using tar or zip.

Infrastructure for Machine Problems

Check with the class handouts (slides) for details about the infrastructure needed for the machine problems (Bochs emulator, compiler, etc.).

We have installed parts of the necessary infrastructure on the machines in Lab in HRBB 219 and on Machine 1 - 10 in Lab HRBB214. In particular, we have installed the following software:

• The NASM assembler. The assembler can be found in Directory c:\NASM or similar.
• The Bochs environment. Bochs can be easily started by clicking on the .bxrc file in your project directory; see below.

• The DJGPP GNU compiler environment for Windows. Install the compiler in a directory called DJGPP in your H: drive. An installation script is provided in the ZIP file.
• The WinImage virtual disk handler for disk image files. This program has the same (or very similar) funtionality to the program FileDisk described in class, but is easier to install and has a graphical user interface. Install this program as well in your H: disk.

The suport files for the machine problems can be found in this zip file. This archive containes four files:

• dev_kernel_grub.img: This file contains the image of the boot "floppy disk". It contains the grub bootloader and a dummy kernel.
• BIOS-bochs-latest: This file contains the BIOS.
• VGABIOS-lpgl-latest: This file contains a basic VGA BIOS.
• bochsrc.bxrc: This text file contains the configuration of the emulated machine. If bochs is correctly installed, double-clicking on this file should start the emulator.

Note: Depending on the particular installation of Bochs on your system, you may need to specify the complete path of the image file for your floopy disk in file bochs.bxrc for Bochs to find the floppy "device". Edit the file bochsrc.bxrc and modify the definition for floppyA to absolute path of the .IMG file.

Machine Problem 1 (Due Date: Check CSNET)

This first machine problem is easy and should get you used the machine problem environment, such as the Bochs emulator, the compilers, and so on.

The handout for MP1 is available here, and the source code that you need to work with is contained in this ZIP file.

To set up the environment for this MP on your machine, create a directory of your choice, copy and unzip the MP1_Source.ZIP to the new directory. This archive contains also all the Bochs environment file needed to run the kernel in the Bochs emulator. Alternatively, you can copy and unzip the file BaseBochsEnv.zip (see paragraph about Bochs Environment above) to that directory as well.You are now ready to go.

Machine Problem 2 (Due Date: Check CSNET)

In the second machine problem you start working on the virtual memory management of your operating system. You will set up the paging system and initialize the page table.

Machine Problem 4 (Due Date: Check CSNET)

In the fourth machine problem you implement a simple device driver. The code for this MP can be found here.