mattern@ma.ecn.purdue.edu (Duane L Mattern) (05/05/87)
I'm interested in any user comments on real time operating system for the ibm PC compatible computers, or any others for that matter. The ones I've heard about are iRMX 86 from INTEL, Concurrent CP/M-86 from Digital Research, and QNX from Quantrum. All of these are at least 3 years old. I'd appreciate any comments from users of these system (current or former), or comments on any other real time operating systems for the PC that I haven't mentioned. -- Duane L. Mattern, Controls ARPA: mattern@ecn.purdue.edu Mechanical Engineering Bld UUCP: ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!mattern ME 13, Purdue University West Lafayette, IN 47907 Voice: (317)49copte U.e
gardner@kodak.UUCP (05/05/87)
In article <652@ma.ecn.purdue.edu> mattern@ma.ecn.purdue.edu (Duane L Mattern) writes: >I'm interested in any user comments on real time operating >system for the ibm PC compatible computers, or any others for >that matter. The ones I've heard about are iRMX 86 from INTEL, >Concurrent CP/M-86 from Digital Research, and QNX from Quantrum. >All of these are at least 3 years old. I'd appreciate any comments >from users of these system (current or former), or comments on any >other real time operating systems for the PC that I haven't mentioned. >-- I'm presently investigating several other RTOS's for the PC. My efforts are presently centered on VRTX from Hunter & Ready (now Ready Systems?), mainly because their file structure is completely DOS-compatible. You can't tell a VRTX file from a DOS file, and DOS can run as a task under VRTX. VRTX is well-documented, well-written, quite complex, and VERY, VERY expensive. It cost ~$16K for a full-featured development package consisting of 5 copies. It is meant to be embedded and invisible in a product of some kind. It's not an interactive environment, though. When you start VRTX, it takes the machine over completely and you have available only what YOU wrote, no DOS services, since the VRTX IO manager must handle everything and you would probably be in big trouble if you tried to use BIOS calls and VRTX did a task switch. I'm trying to interface a special communications board to run under VRTX, and it is not easy, despite all the documentation available. MTOS is another RTOS with a version to run on a PC. It is reasonably- priced (about $500 - single copy), and very powerful. It can handle multi-processing. I chose not to use it for our application because it uses a proprietary file structure. All MTOS files have to be translated to be read by DOS. Industrial Programming Inc. does provide a utility to do that. pSOS is from Software Components Group. They have a full-featured RTOS for 68K machines, but their '86 family flavor is quite new, and requires a lot of work on the part of the user. They are working on this product and expect to have it up-graded by Fall. All of the above RTOS's provide multi-tasking on a PC, but they do NOT cooperate very well with DOS. The applications engineers, will not even discuss running DOS applications under their RTOS. They all say, and rightfully so, that many DOS programs were not written to be used in a multi-tasking situation, and are 'badly-behaved'. The reasons why developers did this have been discussed at length. I guess the moral is: be careful and don't expect too much. I have just ordered a copy of QNX from Quantam software. The Development version is about $650 US and includes a C compiler. A Basic compiler is available also. Other utilities available are: full-screen editor, full- screen appointment scheduler, and ISAM file manager. One big feature is their network ability -- they can provide hardware and software to network PC's and several peripherals together at a reasonable price. They offer electronic mail system and teleconferencing also. I am looking forward to getting this package because it is UNIX-like -- that is, it puts you in an interactive mode of operation. You can run programs in the back- ground while you continue doing other things -- just what I'm looking for. BTW, Quantam advertises that DOS runs as a task under QNX. My investigation is continuing and no conclusions have been reached. Hope you find this info. useful. =#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=# Dick Gardner -- Eastman Kodak Co. Rochester, New York 14650 Phone: (716) 477-1002 UUCP: {allegra,seismo}!rochester!kodak!gardner "Research is what I do when I don't know what I'm doing" =#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#