Re: [ECOS] ROMRAM startup in arm arch

["Gary D. Thomas" <gary dot thomas at mind dot be>]

On Fri, 2003-01-31 at 10:42, Jonathan Larmour wrote:
> Gary D. Thomas wrote:
> > On Thu, 2003-01-30 at 18:17, Fabrice Gautier wrote:
> > 
> >>Hi,
> >>
> >>It seems to me than when ROMRAM startup is choosen, the data section is
> >>copied twice. (I've looked into integrator and ebdxxx platforms). The first
> >>time in the platform specific code, along with the text section, and the
> >>second time is in vector.S. This second time is need to copy the data
> >>section in case of ROM startup.
> >>
> >>Is there really a need to copy twice here ?
> > 
> > 
> > I think you're right although the copy of the DATA segment
> > is a no-op (bytes are copied over themselves).  I'm sure
> > that the reason it was done this way was for simplicity.
> > Also, if there ever was a case where the memory layout
> > for a ROMRAM startup program did not have the DATA segment
> > immediately follow the TEXT, this code would have to be
> > executed.  Doing it always relieves the code from knowing
> > if this is the case.
> 
> For large programs this could be very wasteful though.
> 
> Are there any ARM platforms with ROMRAM startup that _don't_ copy it in 
> the platform HAL?
> 
> The AT91 seems to only relocate 0x10000 bytes (64K) no matter what which 
> looks quite odd indeed.
> 
> The aaed2000, excalibur, ebsa285, as well as edb7xxx and integrator as we 
> know all seem to copy all ROM.
> 
> So any reasons for me not to tweak vectors.S to relocate from ROM to RAM 
> only for ROM startup? And fix the at91 to be consistent with the other 
> platforms?

My only concern is that it would break if the DATA segment does
not follow the TEXT segment directly, as is the current case
for these platforms.  I don't know if such a layout would ever
make sense, but it could come back to haunt us.

-- 
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