Add initial support for Nanox graphics backend for Lua

[toncho11]

Hi @rafael2k

The idea is to have 2 graphical backends: VGA and Nanox.
I would like to see my rotating cube running in Nano-X :)

How do we integrate the nanox lib file into the build?

And we add a flag into the makefile to switch to Nanox like this:

USE_NANOX_BACKEND ?= 0
NANOX_DIR ?= /root/microwindows
NANOX_LIB ?= $(NANOX_DIR)/lib/libnano-X.lib

?

It is work in progress.

[toncho11]

@rafael2k is the master branch the correct one to add new functionality and the one used by the ELKS' automatic builds?

[toncho11]

@ghaerr I want to compile lua (which is compiled with owcc) together with libnano-X.a, but libnano-X.a is compiled with gcc ia 16. So is this actually possible?

[rafael2k]

@rafael2k is the master branch the correct one to add new functionality and the one used by the ELKS' automatic builds?

Very cool @toncho11 ! Yes, that is correct!

[ghaerr]

I want to compile lua (which is compiled with owcc) together with libnano-X.a, but libnano-X.a is compiled with gcc ia 16. So is this actually possible?

Files compiled with OWCC can't be combined/linked with IA16 objects, and vice versa; the object files themselves as well as the function calling conventions are incompatible.

A few options might be either an OWCC version of the Nano-X client library (libnano-X.lib) or an ia16-elf-gcc version of LUA. The Nano-X client library communicates with the Nano-X server via a UNIX socket, so only the client library files (microwindows/src/nanox/{client.c,nxproto.c,nxutil.c,osdep.c) need to be compiled and linked with the application object files. This may not be a big deal, but would require changes to Makefile.elks on the Nano-X repo, or compiling those files along with the LUA build.

The other method would compiling LUA in small model using ia16-elf-gcc. Is there a reason why LUA must be compiled large model? It would seem the cubes demo itself shouldn't require more than 64K code or data, but I haven't looked at the LUA engine to determine that.

[rafael2k]

I want to compile lua (which is compiled with owcc) together with libnano-X.a, but libnano-X.a is compiled with gcc ia 16. So is this actually possible?

Files compiled with OWCC can't be combined/linked with IA16 objects, and vice versa; the object files themselves as well as the function calling conventions are incompatible.

A few options might be either an OWCC version of the Nano-X client library (libnano-X.lib) or an ia16-elf-gcc version of LUA. The Nano-X client library communicates with the Nano-X server via a UNIX socket, so only the client library files (microwindows/src/nanox/{client.c,nxproto.c,nxutil.c,osdep.c) need to be compiled and linked with the application object files. This may not be a big deal, but would require changes to Makefile.elks on the Nano-X repo, or compiling those files along with the LUA build.

The other method would compiling LUA in small model using ia16-elf-gcc. Is there a reason why LUA must be compiled large model? It would seem the cubes demo itself shouldn't require more than 64K code or data, but I haven't looked at the LUA engine to determine that.

Yes - I chose the large model for compiling Lua for a reason.
: )
Just "vendor" these files @ghaerr mentions inside the ELKS Lua repository, if things work / if owcc compiles cleanly the nanoX source, it is a good first step.

[toncho11]

So it did work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But there are also limitations ...

You need to set NANOX_DIR = in you Makefile.elks and we get the executable that supports Nano X.

Here are the details and limitations:

• it only worked when I did /bin/nanox & /bin/lua /root/drawcube.lua
• it did not work like this lua drawcube.lua, it gives an error that it can not open Nano-x
• I started nxdsktop and nxterm and tried from there, but guess what - it gives "lua:out of memory".

hd32-minix.zip

[toncho11]

Actually the idea was to have it working from nxdsktop as a nice demo. But progress is made!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[toncho11]

I reduced the speed between frames and I got a better screenshot

[toncho11]

@ghaerr I tried these in the Lua makefile:

DEFINES += -DAUTO_START_SERVER=1
DEFINES += -DBIN_NANOX='"/bin/nano-x"'

but it did not enable lua ./drawcube.lua.

Maybe the fork that is done when calling it like this lua ./drawcube.lua requires too much memory to start nano-x? While /bin/nanox & /bin/lua /root/drawcube.lua avoids this?