Hi all,
I wrote a program to experiment hardware programming on x86 platforms. I think it might be of interest for anyone who wants to write an OS. Please try it, tell what you think and possibly improve it ...
It's not for total beginners, anyway you can tell me when I'm too cryptic.
File format is .7z (www.7-zip.org) and the assembler is NASM (sorry!)
Bye

Download from pfranz73.googlepages.com

Thanks, I have downloaded it, and will give it a try, next week. Appreciate your effort, and willingness to share your work with us.

Thank you,

I do appreciate that it contains some hardware related information

you should submit this to osdever.org...haven't seen them put up anything new under tutorials or even documents in a while

looks great, i've just seen the readme file..... i'll try it ..............

Thanks for the info, preliminary look-see it is readable. I'll give a more thorough look in the coming weeks.

Thanks! looks promising.

Thanks pfranz, for posting your examples, i will have a look at it and let you know, once i get the right unzipper.

Update, AMD 1200, 224 ram.
1. boots OK.
2. set graphic mode OK.
3. prints right info OK
4. mouse works OK, (as in a pixel that draws to screen).
5. Press E sound works OK (i have a via AC97).
But then mouse stops working and i can not get it to detect usb device.
NOTE: I think theres a conflict with IRQ.

Hope this helps and great work.

I can't download this. It gets to about 200k to 300k and then resets

Downloaded just fine here - browser bug?

I had the same problem MichaelH, but if you keep other writing the zip, it works in the end.

To Dex4u:
I would be surprised if no one experienced the problem you had. My idea was to experiment LEAVING APART all the organization part (which pertains to an operating system). Choosing an IRQ for PCI is not so straightforward (the IRQ Routing table should be used) and pertains to an OS, so I chose the first that worked for me. If the problem is IRQ conflict, which is very probable, you may simply try to take away the AC'97 module, then recompile and run.
Did you use a PS/2 mouse? I thought it would always be assigned to IRQ 12 ... Maybe the IRQ 5 I used for audio can not be used in your PCI on that slot and that blocks everything. Have a look at the IRQ routing table (if you know what I mean, otherwise we can talk by e-mail).
Meanwhile I see if I can patch in a simple way my prog to avoid this problem; can you try on other machines?

@pfranz, Sure i know what you mean, i have most of theres already implemented in my OS http://www.dex4u.com/
But i did have a problem with the rtl8139 ethernet card on this PC (when do the ethernet driver for my OS), if i use IRQ, as in it crashed (so i used polling ).
But i will try it on some other PC and get back to you.

Oops, I replied too quickly ...
I didn't explain that the dot trace of the mouse stops as soon as you press E; afterwards coordinates are updated internally but you can't see whether the mouse is working, unless you have a Trident card and its hardware cursor. So maybe you thought the program crashed while it was running fine instead ...
The blinking line, which appears when a device is inserted in a USB port, is enabled from the start, so you can try it at any time to see if the USB controller was detected and initialized, and if the system is hung. If you insert a problematic device, it may take some minutes for the message to appear, so please wait.
By the way, did you see the message "Audio interrupt ..." at the bottom of the screen at the end of the sound? If the program crashed, it should have dumped the registers.

cant download the file - stops @ ~300kB

See my above post .

It doesn't work Dex. I tried heaps of times and had to abandon my efforts to download it. Can this problem be fixed so us who are having troubles, can download it.

I have post it to my site till its fixed:
http://www.dex4u.com/ASMcompo512b/hwtest.7z

So there is someone still interested out there ... I thought this thread was dead. I sent a mail to you, Dex, at the e-mail address I found in your site (susan.armstrong70@ntlworld.com), but got no response.
Do you want me to send you an updated version of hwtest, so that you can host it in your site ?
If someone has reports/comments/suggestions, please let me know