collapseos/apps/README.md
Virgil Dupras f3992ed598 basic: begin an implementation from sratch
Let's see where it will lead us...
2019-11-13 15:28:16 -05:00

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# User applications
This folder contains code designed to be "userspace" application. Unlike the
kernel, which always stay in memory. Those apps here will more likely be loaded
in RAM from storage, ran, then discarded so that another userspace program can
be run.
That doesn't mean that you can't include that code in your kernel though, but
you will typically not want to do that.
## Userspace convention
We execute a userspace application by calling the address it's loaded into. This
means: a userspace application is expected to return.
Whatever calls the userspace app (usually, it will be the shell), should set
HL to a pointer to unparsed arguments in string form, null terminated.
The userspace application is expected to set A on return. 0 means success,
non-zero means error.
A userspace application can expect the `SP` pointer to be properly set. If it
moves it, it should take care of returning it where it was before returning
because otherwise, it will break the kernel.
Apps in Collapse OS are design to be ROM-compatible, that is, they don't write
to addresses that are part of the code's address space.