Hartstone Benchmark, version 1.1

Hartstone Benchmark, version 1.1

[Patrick Donohoe]

                   The Hartstone Benchmark, Version 1.1
                   ====================================

   The Hartstone benchmark is a set of timing requirements for testing a
   system's ability to handle hard real-time applications.  It is specified
   as a set of processes with well-defined workloads and timing constraints.
   The name Hartstone derives from HArd Real Time and the fact that the work-
   loads are based on the well-known Whetstone benchmark.  "Hard" real-time
   applications must meet their deadlines to satisfy system requirements;
   this contrasts with "soft" real-time applications where a statistical
   distribution of response times is acceptable.

   Five test series, of increasing complexity, have been proposed for Hart-
   stone and the first of these, the Periodic Harmonic (PH) series, has been
   implemented in the Ada programming language at the Software Engineering
   Institute (SEI).  Known as version 1.0 of Hartstone, it has been available
   publicly for the past two years.  Version 1.1 of the benchmark is now
   available.  This new version corrects some minor errors in the 1.0 release.
   It has also been restructured to enable users to use a debugger as an inter-
   active interface for preliminary tuning of Hartstone parameters and for
   performing multiple Hartstone experiments.  This eliminates the need for
   repeated compile-link-download cycles when tuning and running Hartstone.
   It also facilitates experimentation with non-harmonic task sets, i.e. the
   Periodic Non-Harmonic (PH) test series.

   Electronic mail requests for Hartstone should be sent to the following
   Internet address:

                        hartstone-info@sei.cmu.edu

   For people without Internet access, the address to send requests to is:

                        REST Transition Services
                        Software Engineering Institute
                        Carnegie Mellon University
                        Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890
                        Phone: (412) 268-7787

   Hartstone source code may also be retrieved from the PIWG bulletin board at

                             (412) 268-7020



Patrick Donohoe,  Software Engineering Institute,    pd@sei.cmu.edu
Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213.    (412) 268-7616