Just because you can target a small / old /slow cpu doesn’t mean you want to or would like the results. I have very comfortably targeted low end pentium systems (say 100 Mhz) with 32 meg or ram and 32 meg of flash. It had a gui touch screen interface and drove some hardware in response to user needs. I could have used a slower system, but there was nothing to gain.
In none of these cases would I want to use the target hardware as the development host system.
Rick…
So what you’re all saying is, forgetting the development tools, I can install any version of QNX – from QNX 6.0 through 6.3 – on my dual Pentium Pro system? And that I should only expect the kind of performance I could get out of a dual Pentium Pro 266 system with 32 MB RAM, but it will work? And furthermore, that if I wanted to, I can enable SMP support on any version of QNX but that the more recent the version of QNX I use the better the SMP support will be?
yep, yep and yep.
One extra point, 32 MB of RAM is prolly too small to install the RTP/Momentics ISOs directly. You may have to build a custom image for the target machine on another host.
There was a problem with SMP support in 6.1 where it would not work with certain SMP machines. In particular I had to rewrite parts of the SMP startup code to make it work with a quad ppro200 that I was playing with. So if it doesn’t work, don’t be surprized.
Rick…
Are you telling me you work(ed) at QSL? Why is QSL not releasing the PowerPC port?
No, although I have worked for QSS as a consultant, I was never an employee. The work I did with the SMP problem was purely for my own education. I bought a old used Netfinity 7000 which had quad ppro200s and unlike what I expected, it actually wouldn’t boot QNX. So I fixed it.
The tools to fix this kind of thing are part of the os. I used the x86 BSP code as a starting point, then found the problem and fixed it. With 6.2, QNX had written a more generalised approach to SMP startup and the problem I had found/fixed was already addressed.
QNX has had a PPC version since 6.0. I don’t understand your PowerPC port question.
Rick…
The free versions of the QNX host available for download only runs on x86. What about someone who wants to run the QNX host on PowerPC hardware? I realize you can buy it for a bajillion dollars per seat, but what’s wrong with letting PowerPC folks run it natively on their hardware for non-commercial use?
For that matter, why isn’t there a Mac OS X hosted version either?
Why? I suspect QSS has better things to do and they are not seeing any (paying) customers asking for such support.
On the other hand, there has been talk occasionally about a ppc hosted version, but until I see something, I suspect it is just talk.
Rick…
Well I have an old Daystar system with four 233 MHz PowerPC 604e chips and 1.5 GB RAM. BeOS runs on it and even though it’s better than QNX overall it’s no longer updated, and QNX is still actively developed. It’d be nice to have it on there.