On Sun, Nov 20, 2011 at 10:06 PM, Dave Gomberg <da...@wcf.com> wrote:
> ... I don't think there is enough demand to ever see a real-time Windows > system.... Dave, I'm no OS expert, but I don't think any modern multi-tasking multi-threaded general purpose OS can ever really meet the requirements of a true real-time system. The OS is supposed to guarantee that a process deterministically achieves certain scheduling deadlines. This requires minimal interrupt latency and minimal scheduling latency, which in turn means that things get out of hand if too many processes are sending interrupts and grabbing cycles. Neal's purpose-built PCs use Windows but get good throughput by stripping out lots of ancillary stuff and concentrating on running just Flex software. This could presumably be carried to another level by running a real-time OS instead of Windows. RTOS's include QNX and RTLinux, as well as some cell-phone OS's etc. These systems are not for use as general-purpose windowing systems, but rather for embedded applications, where they find wide applicability; a typical example is in routers. QNX is found not only in the little wireless box in your bedroom, but also in huge routers with massively parallel processing, handling tens of thousands of connections. Tony KT0NY -- http://www.isb.edu/faculty/facultydir.aspx?ddlFaculty=352 _______________________________________________ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ Knowledge Base: http://kc.flexradio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flexradio.com/
