mem@sii.UUCP (Mark Mallett) (12/27/83)
b Re: the request for comments on the VRTX operating system, the Hunter and Ready real-time ROM set-- (This is a tangential followup relating to a different product) About a year and a half ago we (we = the company I was consulting at) were looking at real time systems for a graphics product. I had a chance to read the manuals for VRTX, and they looked quite reasonable. However we chose another system developed by Industrial Programming Inc. of Jerico NY (IPI) called MTOS (for Multi-Tasking Operating System). Where VRTX is a ROM set which provides basic real-time services, MTOS is a set of source code which is linked with user tasks and which can be tailored for the needs of the application. Without going on at length: we had no trouble getting it running, interfacing drivers and tasks to it, or making changes to it. Support from IPI was excellent, they answered almost all questions on the phone and also published a monthly update letter. Running, it performs very well. Now, as with anything, there are parts of it which one might have expected to be done differently, but the bottom line is that it provides a set of basic services and runs well. It also includes task interfaces for Motorola Pascal and Whitesmiths C. In summary, this is your basic testimonial for MTOS. If you're already considering VRTX (or some other real-time multitasking system), you might check out MTOS as well. (and vice-versa!). Mark E. Mallett decvax!sii!mem