
Functionality of eCos on the PC
-------------------------------

This release of eCos for the PC target is based on the code
contributed by Patrick O'Grady (patrick@softprocess.com). With the
exception of some minor reorganization it is essentially the same as
Patrick's release.

There are a number of things that are currently incomplete and are
listed here to indicate where this code is expected to change in the
future. These include:

- The current exception handling code is derived from the original GDB
  stubs and is only really adequate for handling debugging
  requirements. We will need to provide full support for exception
  delivery to applications. As a result of this, nearly all of the
  related code will need to be rewritten.

- Currently the GDB stub monitor is used just as a loader, once the
  program is running any debug duties are taken by a separate set of
  GDB stubs in the loaded image. To make this image smaller it is
  desirable to use the GDB stubs already present in the monitor. This
  requires some reorganization of the VSR table and the addition of a
  vector table for calls between the two pieces of code. 

- Related to the previous item, support for using Ctrl-C when there
  are no stubs present in the executable need to be added. This
  differs from the current support that interacts with the included
  stubs since it must interact with the monitor via the vector table.

- At present the stub monitor can only boot from floppy disk. It
  should be possible to make this code more generic so that it can
  boot from hard disk and CD too. Support for applications that can
  boot in this way should also be possible, as is booting via
  BOOTP/TFTP from a network interface.

- Complete the HAL port, including addition of cache control macros
  and a cleaner distinction between architecture, variant and
  platform.


