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 | | From: | Bilicon | | Subject: | Dumb question from a dumb guy | | Date: | 10 Jan 2005 00:55:21 -0800 |
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 | Hi,
Is it possible to develop an embedded system without having to use an RTOS ?
I believe it is possible, but don't know what all needs to be taken care of.
So, can anyone throw some light on it ?
I'm a beginner to RTOS concepts and trying to learn it by asking such questions.
Thanks,
Bilicon.
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| | From: | David | | Subject: | Re: Dumb question from a dumb guy | | Date: | Mon, 10 Jan 2005 11:02:13 +0100 |
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| On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 00:55:21 -0800, Bilicon wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Is it possible to develop an embedded system without having to use an RTOS ?
>
The huge majority of embedded systems do not have any sort of OS, but are
based on small microcontrollers running "bare metal". An OS is necessary
if you want a layer of abstraction giving you features such as
multi-threading / multi-processing, and hardware abstraction (especially
for networking). If you are looking at a big system (say, 150MHz+, 32-bit
processor, ethernet), then an OS will make development much easier. If
you are looking at a small system (8-bit or 16-bit), then it is an
overhead you almost certainly don't need. Of course, there are no rules
here - there are plenty of OS's for 8-bit micros, and plenty of 32-bit
sytems without an OS.
There are also embedded systems that use OS's which are not real-time.
The two most popular in this category are embedded linux (which is also
available with real-time extensions), and wince (popular with PHBs who
want to employee visual basic "programmers" instead of embedded systems
developers).
> I believe it is possible, but don't know what all needs to be taken care of.
> So, can anyone throw some light on it ?
>
> I'm a beginner to RTOS concepts and trying to learn it by asking such questions.
>
> Thanks,
> Bilicon.
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