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From: cprice@mips.com (Charlie Price)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mips,comp.sys.dec
Subject: Re: risc development environment
Message-ID: <4719@spim.mips.COM>
Date: 14 Jun 91 17:42:09 GMT
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In article <25406@well.sf.ca.us> gregs@well.sf.ca.us (Greg Strockbine) writes:
>
>We just bought a DEC 5500 machine
>but we there seems to be some pieces missing, the list file does not
>supply addresses, there is no utility to convert to S record format.
>IDT thinks we should buy a mips workstation, they say all the tools are
>there,

Of COURSE you want a MIPS workstation! :-)

I don't know exactly what tools IDT has in mind.
MIPS sells a package called the System Programmers Package (SPP)
that is a basis for building a system-level simulator.
I believe that at least some of our semiconductor partners,
like IDT, resell versions of it with additional support
for their own chipsets and development boards/hardware.
SPP has an instruction-level CPU simulator for the R3000
and some sample I/O device simulators.
You develop a simulator model of your hardware by adding/modifying
code to simulate your hardware devices and environment.
You can then execute compiled code on the finished system
simulator and run it using the existing debugger, dbx.

This is all fairly spiffy --
MIPS normally boots a version of UNIX for a new machine on a
simulator long before the hardware is ready.

>Also the DEC machine is little endian but everyone recommends our target
>system be big endian.  Why?

You should pick an endian-ness that fits your environment.
If the application doesn't dictate the selection,
pick one that is convenient to write software for.

DEC ships the only little-endian MIPS-based systems.
IDT probably uses boxes from MIPS and therefore
is used to thinking big endian and has big-endian tools.
That is my guess why you are hearing big-endian.

DEC ships the MIPS compilers with their OS.
The MIPS compilers can generate code for either endian-ness.
Unless DEC has made that option difficult to use,
you can generate binaries whichever way you want.
The other utilities you want to use probably don't work very well
with non-native endian-ness binaries, though.

-- 
Charlie Price    cprice@mips.mips.com        (408) 720-1700
MIPS Computer Systems / 928 Arques Ave.  MS 1-03 / Sunnyvale, CA   94088-3650