Re: Should light runtimes get more consideration?

[Chris Townley <news@cct-net.co.uk>]

On 29/09/2023 10:59, Kevin Chadwick wrote:
> 
>>>>> Tasking is very limited. For example you can't use
>>>>> timeouts. Never. They propose a workaround but it is complex and not
>>>>> equivalent to a real timeout management.
>>>>
>>>> Not sure what a "real timeout management" would look like?
>>>>
>>>>> I'd like to have a full Ada RTS for embedded targets, like on
>>>>> desktop.
>>>>
>>>> Have you considered using something like a Raspberry Pi?
>>> A RaspberryPi is a computer (based on a microprocessor with an OS), 
>>> not an micro-controller. It consumes a lot of electrical power. The 
>>> OS (linux) is not real time. It uses a lot of board space. The 
>>> processor is a proprietary black box...
>>>
>>
>> Plenty use the Raspberry Pi as a microcontroller
> 
> I think Simons point was that Arm/Linux has a working full runtime. I guess
> bare raspberry pie would not and I guess it would be a rather large module
> or board or single board computer depending on the model.
> 
> WRT energy use. I use a low power run feature on the STM32L4 which means 
> the
> system clock speed can change at any time. That seems to be incompatible
> with any runtime that I have seen except the minimal light-cortex-m4 one. I
> assume working with clocks is more scalable than working with runtimes but
> I do not know for sure.
> 

Agreed, but in addition to the mainline Pis there is the zero, and the 
pico, which has a 'RP2040' made by Raspberry Pi and is a dual-core ARM 
Cortex M0+ processor, with a flexible clock running up to 133MHz

-- 
Chris