15 replies to this topic

[taz15964]

Dear all,
I am not sure if any1 has done this, but I am trying to get a touchscreen display PC to run a program (.exe) as soon as it is switched on, no windows is installed, I just want the program I made to run. I am very new to programming, and so I am not sure where to start with this project.
Do I have to write a program that initialises my .exe file. Is there a tutorial for this sort of thing.
I am completely lost any help would be really appreciated.

Kind regards
Taz

[Xav]

You'd need to change the boat loader to your program, no idea how. Also, how can the program run if there's no operating system to run it in?

[WingedPanther]

Back in the old days (1980's) some games were sold that had their own bootstrap loader on the disk. This let them use non-standard disk formats, etc to avoid copying. You would have to create your own drivers, boot loader, etc. to do what you are suggesting.

[Aereshaa]

What you are suggesting is the same as using that executable as an OS.

[taz15964]

This is very true, I guess to a certain level what I'm looking to do is create something similar to the archose device. I am guessing, its built like a pc, with processor, hard drive, usb connections and so on. but when you turn it on, there is no windows, only its own menu system to play movies, listen to mp3, brows the internet, get weather reports, but that’s it, it has no dvd drive and you can't download programs on it.
To create a program like the archose software what language would I have to learn, to I guess create my own OS.
Or is Linux so light and easy to adapt that I would be able to change it to what I desire, and if so, what language is Linux written in as google is giving me all sorts of strange results.
Sorry if this sounds very amature but I don't know where to start.
Any help would be great.

[nullbyte]

taz15964 said:

This is very true, I guess to a certain level what I'm looking to do is create something similar to the archose device. I am guessing, its built like a pc, with processor, hard drive, usb connections and so on. but when you turn it on, there is no windows, only its own menu system to play movies, listen to mp3, brows the internet, get weather reports, but that’s it, it has no dvd drive and you can't download programs on it.
To create a program like the archose software what language would I have to learn, to I guess create my own OS.
Or is Linux so light and easy to adapt that I would be able to change it to what I desire, and if so, what language is Linux written in as google is giving me all sorts of strange results.
Sorry if this sounds very amature but I don't know where to start.
Any help would be great.

If you want to create a new OS, learn C++ & ASM :)

[G_Morgan]

You will need Windows to run Windows executables (not entirely accurate because you could potentially use Wine but then you'll need Linux). A huge section of any program is the various libraries and system calls that depend upon the OS being in place. For example you cannot create a Win32 GUI without the Win32 library being available.

If you want to be able to run a single program from boot up then I'd pick up Linux and study how it works. Essentially you will want to see how to piece together a Linux system from the bottom up (easier than it sounds) and then adapt the environment to run a single executable that is run via the init system*. Of course this limits you to running programs designed for Linux. If your goal is to run MS Office from startup then you are probably out of luck.

You don't have to create your application in the same language as Linux (which is written in C). In fact you will barely have to touch Linux outside of hooking up your init scripts (which are written in the Unix shell scripting language but are usually very simple) assuming the hardware is supported. This is quite a common configuration for embedded programming. Note that you don't have to have a single executable for it to run as a single application.

*all Unix systems have an initial process called init. The system is brought up by the init system which runs a bunch of scripts to start system services, login shells and X11 login windows.

Edited by G_Morgan, 04 July 2008 - 04:24 AM.

[elvenrunelord]

you would have to create your own OS and load the program from that OS in my opinion. Not sure what that is called.

[TkTech]

This may be a bit above your skill level for a very long time :)
However, you can always piggyback on another platform, like linux or ReactOS to boot your executable. G_Morgan's solution would suit what your trying to do, and would take roughly 5 seconds to boot.

Note, linux uses ELF, while windows uses PE. Thinking your going to be able to just load an .exe right off the bat is naive xD

[G_Morgan]

TkTech said:

Note, linux uses ELF, while windows uses PE. Thinking your going to be able to just load an .exe right off the bat is naive xD

That can be solved with Wine but I've never seen it used in a single application setting. X11 can launch single applications but who knows how something as complex as Wine will respond. Not to mention that there's no guarantee that Wine will have bug for bug compatibility with the necessary Windows libraries.

[TkTech]

I doubt (I'd have to check) wine will run, it has a ton of dependencies, and, depending on what he's trying to do, Wine may not have completed or even started the libraries for it. Its not a dependable solution.

[marwex89]

I also suggest a quick google, if not already done. You are NOT the first person trying to do this, and might find tutorials as well as source code.