Re: Would this be logical for embedded hardware?

[Jeffrey Carter <spam.jrcarter.not@spam.not.acm.org>]

On 06/28/2012 04:54 PM, Patrick wrote:
>
> I have been trying to find a RTOS to partner with Ada but there is a dizzying
> 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 just
> 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.

This sounds like what was commonly heard about Ada-83 tasking: it won't be fast 
enough, or will use too much memory/CPU/whatever, so we won't use it and will 
write a cyclic executive instead. Those who actually used tasks usually found 
them that they worked fine, and resulted in a much simpler design as well. So 
don't write off something that would be "fine" without substantiation.

> With those items in mind, here is what I was thinking.... 32 bit
> microcontrollers are dirt cheap and many come with ethernet built in and
> TCP/IP libraries.
>
> If I broke the instrument down in to various modules, keypad,
> computer-controlled power supply, optical system, detector etc. I could
> assign a microcontroller to each module and program that MCU in C. The C
> program could pretty much do one thing only.

I've worked on embedded systems like this (multiple networked 32-bit 
processors), but they were all developed in Ada. I don't see why you couldn't 
use Ada for all the processors in your system, too. And you could look into 
SoftTech's compiler that generates C if you have difficulty finding an Ada 
compiler targeting your processor of choice.

-- 
Jeff Carter
"Have you gone berserk? Can't you see that that man is a ni?"
Blazing Saddles
38



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