From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,567c75d71a7993ab,start X-Google-NewGroupId: yes X-Google-Attributes: gida07f3367d7,domainid0,public,usenet X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Received: by 10.68.228.227 with SMTP id sl3mr39739pbc.5.1340927665929; Thu, 28 Jun 2012 16:54:25 -0700 (PDT) Path: l9ni31275pbj.0!nntp.google.com!news1.google.com!postnews.google.com!glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail From: Patrick Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Would this be logical for embedded hardware? Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2012 16:54:25 -0700 (PDT) Organization: http://groups.google.com Message-ID: <52386bce-0e18-45e0-a172-e2f8df7d211f@googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 70.51.155.15 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Trace: posting.google.com 1340927665 1373 127.0.0.1 (28 Jun 2012 23:54:25 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2012 23:54:25 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com; posting-host=70.51.155.15; posting-account=cUi90woAAADTaOISowbbHM8GUD0-opJO User-Agent: G2/1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Date: 2012-06-28T16:54:25-07:00 List-Id: I have come up with a design layout that I did not read about elsewhere and= that worries me! Please read this and possibly save me from my own stupidi= ty. A little background... I want to use Ada for several things but a key one is to design a scientifi= c instrument. I was drawn to Ada in late 2011 because it has a rich set of = features to make embedded design easier and by it's strict compiler.=20 I don't think Ada is hard to develop in but I actually don't care, above al= l else, I want to ship as few bugs as I possibly can. I have next to no exp= erience with embedded design and I do not have decades of experience with d= esktop programming either. Ada's compiler could really help someone like me= . A couple months ago I was disheartened to learn that my assumptions about A= da running on bare metal were false. GNAT does not have the ability to targ= et all the devices GCC supports while still offering a full Ada implementat= ion. I have been trying to find a RTOS to partner with Ada but there is a dizzyi= ng array of them. It seems like the ones held in highest regard are closed = source and expensive. I also don't have hard deadlines, near realtime is ju= st fine. Linux would be fine but I can't imagine fitting it on a device and= still having enough GPIO lines left over to do what I want with. One of the things that appeals most to me with Ada is tasking. It seems lik= e a good way to compartmentalize complexity. I can't visualize how to do th= is in C. With those items in mind, here is what I was thinking.... 32 bit microcontr= ollers are dirt cheap and many come with ethernet built in and TCP/IP libra= ries. If I broke the instrument down in to various modules, keypad, computer-cont= rolled power supply, optical system, detector etc. I could assign a microco= ntroller to each module and program that MCU in C. The C program could pret= ty much do one thing only.=20 I could use a Linux single board computer(maybe something like Raspberry PI= ) and some sort of router to communicate with the various MCU C modules. Ad= a Tasking on the Linux SBC would give me a logical way to control them and = the bulk of the full system's logic could be in Ada, Ada would also give m= e exceptions if something goes wrong. If I used ethernet instead of SPI or CAN bus, I could control all the C MCU= s using a plain Linux desktop and then add in the Linux SBC at the end. Does this seem logical?-Patrick