[ECOS] Additional serial drivers & file systems & redboot for i386 targets

[Teng Chee Wan Philip <tcheewan@dso.org.sg>]

Hi,

I have a few questions about the i386 PC:

1.  The i386 PC target has 2 serial ports.  I would like to add a serial I/O 
card to it to get more serial I/O ports and write a serial I/O driver for it.  
What would be the neatest way to do it?  The serial I/O card needs some 
additional initialisation to 'activate' it.  Do I modify 
packages/io/serial/v1_3_1/i386/pc_serial.c and the corresponding .cdl file 
directly?  I hope to use the configuration tool to enable or disable the driver 
depending on whether the serial card is installed or not.

2.  I read some exchanges about having a DOS Filesystem on ECOS.  Personally, I 
felt this will be useful, esp for my application where I need to store large 
amount of data on harddisks.  Is this coming in the foreseeable future?  
Meanwhile, is there any way I can make use of the harddisk to store my data 
under ECOS?  Using raw filesystems(if any)or other formats?

3.  Is redboot supported on i386 target?  I can't find any.  Is there any reason 
why redboot is not supported?  Or are we just waiting for someone to develop it?

regards,
Philip Teng