OS-9 Technology Brief

<BODY>  > <DIV align="left"> <TABLE border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="3"> <tr> <TD valign="top" width="200"> <P><IMG src="../images/elsoft.gif" width="180" height="38"></P> <p> <a href="../fr0000.html">Home</a><br> <a href="../fr1000.html">Services</a><br> <a href="../fr2000.html">Products</a><br> <IMG src="../images/abst.gif" WIDTH="8" HEIGHT="1"><a href="../fr2100.html">Microware OS-9</a><br> <IMG src="../images/abst.gif" WIDTH="8" HEIGHT="1"><IMG src="../images/abst.gif" WIDTH="8" HEIGHT="1"><strong><a href="../fr2110.html">OS-9 Technology</a></strong><br> <IMG src="../images/abst.gif" WIDTH="8" HEIGHT="1"><IMG src="../images/abst.gif" WIDTH="8" HEIGHT="1"><a href="../fr2120.html">Enhanced OS-9 for 68k</a><br> <IMG src="../images/abst.gif" WIDTH="8" HEIGHT="1"><IMG src="../images/abst.gif" WIDTH="8" HEIGHT="1"><a href="../fr2130.html">OS-9 for PowerPC</a><br> <IMG src="../images/abst.gif" WIDTH="8" HEIGHT="1"><IMG src="../images/abst.gif" WIDTH="8" HEIGHT="1"><a href="../fr2140.html">OS-9 for x86</a><br> <IMG src="../images/abst.gif" WIDTH="8" HEIGHT="1"><IMG src="../images/abst.gif" WIDTH="8" HEIGHT="1"><a href="../fr2150.html">OS-9 for StrongARM</a><br> <IMG src="../images/abst.gif" WIDTH="8" HEIGHT="1"><IMG src="../images/abst.gif" WIDTH="8" HEIGHT="1"><a href="../fr2160.html">OS-9 for SuperH</a><br> </p> <form action="http://www.elsoft.ch/cgi-bin/htsearch" target=Right> <CENTER><b>Quick Search:</b><br> <font size="-1"> <input type=text name=words size=15> <input type=hidden name=method value=and> <input type=hidden name=config value=elsoft_htdig> </font> </CENTER> </form> </TD> <TD valign="top"> <h1>Microware Technology Brief  </h1> <p><img src="../images/microware.gif" alt="[Microware Logo]" WIDTH="310" HEIGHT="188"></p> <h2>OS-9: A Superior Baseline for Embedded Applications </h2> <p>OS-9 is Microware's flagship real-time operating system (RTOS) for embedded systems.  The technologically superior RTOS has features that meet your embedded application requirements. </p> <h2>Modular Architecture </h2> <p> <img SRC="../images/os9_modules.gif" ALT="OS-9 Module Format" BORDER="0" ID="Picture3" WIDTH="633" HEIGHT="357"></p> <p>The first part of every OS-9 module is a header, which records the revision history.  This enables module by module upgrade or replacement, resulting in highly availability and field upgradeable end products.  The second part of an OS-9 module is the position independent, fully reentrant data/code area that enables functionality to be built into one module then shared by multiple others to minimize overall code size.  The third piece of the module is the cyclic redundancy check (CRC), which detects accidentally or maliciously corrupted modules, providing high reliability and security. </p> <h2>Real-Time System Updates </h2> <p>  <img SRC="../images/os9_updates.gif" ALT="OS-9 Real-Time Updates" BORDER="0" ID="Picture5" WIDTH="637" HEIGHT="330"></p> <p>Non OS-9 threaded operating systems tend to be one blended body of code.  To update a single component, the entire blended body of code must be reloaded for testing, resulting in long reloads.  Also, you must typically reboot the system to experience introduce the change. </p> <p> OS-9's modular format allows you to simply load the new module for testing.  Use this same feature to upgrade or replace modules while deployed systems are on-line and in-use.  New features can also be added remotely without physical access to the equipment for low cost of upgrade. </p> <h2>System Security  </h2> <p><img SRC="../images/os9_security.gif" ALT="OS-9 Security" BORDER="0" ID="Picture6" WIDTH="628" HEIGHT="331"> </p> <p>The blended body of code typical of non OS-9 systems provides no system protection.  Accidental or malicious corruption from any thread can bring down the entire system.  The OS-9 process model architecture coupled with OS-9's system state/user state boundary and module CRCs provide a high level of protection against corruption to the system.  OS-9 traps, isolates, contains, and can report faults in the system to console printer, or other processes to initiate automatic error recovery procedures using the OS-9 exception handling facilities.  This provides a full error detection and recovery environment.. </p> <h2>Process-Model Architecture </h2> <p><img SRC="../images/os9_process.gif" ALT="OS-9 Process Model" BORDER="0" ID="Picture7" WIDTH="620" HEIGHT="343"></p> <p>If your application demands fault tolerance and high reliability, then a process model RTOS like OS-9 is your best choice.  Threads-based kernels tend to be very fragile environments.  A bug in one thread can result in catastrophic results for the entire system.  In the OS-9 environment, individual process failures are localized and cannot affect other processes or system resources.  As a result, non-critical process failures cannot bring down your entire system.  </p> <p>Microware's OS-9 real-time operating system (RTOS) provides an exceptional foundation for embedded real-time products.  OS-9's compact, high-performance, multi-user, multi-tasking real-time kernel offers unique features to provide a solid foundation for time-to-revenue success.  OS-9's extensive API and I/O structure allows developers to quickly and easily write applications that are independent of hardware devices. </p> <h2>Application Programming Interfaces (APIs)  </h2> <p>OS-9 includes a rich set of application programming environments and interfaces to maximize programmer productivity.  Customer experience shows that with these APIs, the OS-9 programming environment can require 70% fewer lines of application code compared to other commercial RTOSs.  OS-9 APIs include HTML, native C/C++, sockets, PersonalJava and custom APIs. </p> <h3>HTML </h3> <p>The most identifiable application for HTML application environments is browsing or web content. HTML is also finding applicability in other applications such as storing more traditional embedded system content like system statistics and configuration information.  OS-9 provides a broad base of web serving and browsing technologies for all these applications. </p> <h3>Native C/C++ </h3> <p>Application programming with OS-9 is very similar to UNIX programming.  The native application environment incorporates a unified I/O system where accessing any kind of I/O device by the application is done the same way (open(), close(), read(), write()).  If you're familiar with the ioctl() call in UNIX, system configuration getting and setting is done through getstat() and setstat() calls identical to ioctl().  Whether accessing a disk, tape drive, CD, network, graphics, or multimedia device, the baseline native APIs through OS-9 are the same. </p> <p>Microware has expanded this unified I/O API to provide additional APIs for networking, graphics, MPEG and other multimedia services. </p> <h3>Sockets (and NFS/RPC) </h3> <p>The OS-9 product line comes complete with a TCP/IP stack based on Berkeley Standard Distribution (BSD) version 4.4.  This implementation provides a robust socket library that provides for simple porting and compatibility with any sockets-based utilities or applications.  Remote Procedure Call (RPC) interface is also available with Network File System (NFS) client and server for applications or environments requiring these kinds of services. </p> <h3>PersonalJava </h3> <p>Microware has an extensive track record and proven leadership position in Java.  Microware was the first RTOS manufacturer to become a Sun Java licensee, to release a release a PersonalJava/RTOS product and to participate in a PersonalJava-based network deployment. </p> <h3>Custom APIs </h3> <p>OS-9 allows easy creation of custom library bindings to enable fast and easy application development suited to your requirements. </p> <h2>Extensive I/O Support  </h2> <p>OS-9 provides extensive I/O support through the I/O manager and file managers.  File managers are hardware-independent modules designed to handle I/O processing for a specific class of devices.  Device drivers handle the basic physical I/O functions for specific controllers.  The device descriptors are small,  non-executable modules that associate a specific I/O device with a logical name, hardware address, device driver name, and initialization parameters.  OS-9's flexible and scalable architecture makes it easy to add support for new I/O devices at boot time or dynamically while the system is running. </p> <p>OS-9's I/O architecture allows you to write less code to support different I/O hardware.  File managers provide an abstraction layer between your application and the physical hardware and provide logical I/O support such as opening, reading, or writing for a device.  Device drivers handle physical I/O such as initializing the device and reading or writing a standard physical  unit of data from the device.  As you add new I/O devices, you can use the existing  file managers for the logical I/O support and easily develop the code to handle the  physical I/O device. </p> <p>OS-9 file managers include: </p> <div align="center"><center> <table BORDER="1" CELLPADDING="7" ID="Table326"> <tr> <td VALIGN="TOP"><p align="center">File Manager </td> <td VALIGN="top"><p align="center">Description </td> </tr> <tr> <td VALIGN="TOP"><p align="center">SPF </td> <td VALIGN="TOP">Stacked Protocol File manager handles I/O for devices that  use stacked protocols such as Ethernet, TCP/IP or ATM.</td> </tr> <tr> <td VALIGN="TOP"><p align="center">MFM </td> <td VALIGN="TOP">Multimedia File Manager handles I/O for multimedia  devices such as LCD's, VGA/SVGA displays, audio, keyboard, touchpads, touch screens, mice, and other pointer devices.</td> </tr> <tr> <td VALIGN="TOP"><p align="center">RBF </td> <td VALIGN="TOP">Random Block File  manager handles I/O for random-access, block-structured devices such as floppy/hard disk  drives.</td> </tr> <tr> <td VALIGN="TOP"><p align="center">SCF </td> <td VALIGN="TOP">Sequential Character File manager handles I/O for sequential-access, character-structured devices  such as terminals, printers and modems.</td> </tr> <tr> <td VALIGN="TOP"><p align="center">SBF </td> <td VALIGN="TOP">Sequential Block File  manager handles I/O for sequentail-access, block-structured devices such as tape drives.</td> </tr> <tr> <td VALIGN="TOP"><p align="center">PC Card </td> <td VALIGN="TOP">PC Card file manager provides PCMCIA card  services based on CardSoft from SystemSoft, Inc.</td> </tr> <tr> <td VALIGN="TOP"><p align="center">RBFTL </td> <td VALIGN="TOP">Random Block Flash Translation Layer file manager provides flash memory file  services based on TrueFFS from SystemSoft.</td> </tr> <tr> <td VALIGN="TOP"><p align="center">Pipes </td> <td VALIGN="TOP">Pipe file manager handles I/O for  inter-process communications through memory buffers called pipes. OS-9 supports both named  and unnamed pipes.</td> </tr> <tr> <td VALIGN="TOP"><p align="center">PCF </td> <td VALIGN="TOP">PCFile manager handles I/O for  random-access, block-structured devices such as floppy/hard disk drives that use a DOS  directory structure.</td> </tr> <tr> <td><p align="center">MPFM </td> <td>Motion Picture File Manager provides MPEG video encoding capabilities</td> </tr> </table> </center></div> <p> <img SRC="../images/wp-os9-7.gif" ALT="File Manager/Device Driver/Device Descriptor functions" BORDER="0" ID="Picture538" ALIGN="TOP" WIDTH="545" HEIGHT="382"> </p> <h2>High Performance Communications  </h2> <p>SoftStax builds on the OS-9 I/O framework to provide a high-performance communications subsystem that supports a wide variety of standard and custom networking protocols.  SoftStax's architecture and API layer allows your application to be written independent of the underlying protocol, device drivers, and  network media for greater portability.  With SoftStax, applications can utilize several protocol stacks during a single communications session and switch  protocols depending on the network requirements. </p> <h2>Embeddable Multimedia Support  </h2> <p>MAUI is Microware's solution for multimedia support in embedded systems.  MAUI extends the OS-9 device driver model to enable graphical processor independence to facilitate application  portability.  MAUI provides a rich set of text, drawing, and animation services along with windowing, clipping, and inking to support your graphical interface.  MAUI furnishes a high speed drawing engine that is modular for flexibility and compact for embedded environments. </p> <hr> <h3>Contact Information</h3> <table border="1"> <tr> <td>Telephone</td> <td><strong>+41 (0)56 483 34 64</strong><img src="../images/smallnew.gif" alt="smallnew.gif (905 bytes)" WIDTH="25" HEIGHT="14"></td> <td rowspan="4"><img src="../images/elsoft-big.gif" alt="[Esloft AG logo]" WIDTH="300" HEIGHT="64"></td> </tr> <tr> <td>FAX</td> <td>+41 (0)56 493 30 20</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Address</td> <td>Taefernstrasse 20, CH-5403 Daettwil</td> </tr> <tr> <td>E-Mail</td> <td><a href="mailto:info@elsoft.ch">info@elsoft.ch</a></td> </tr> </table> <p>Information contained in this document is subject to change without notice.<br> Other products and companies referred to herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies or mark holders.<br> Copyright © 1997-2001 Elsoft AG, Switzerland</p> <p>Last modification: 05 April, 2000 /sp</p> </TD> </TR> </TABLE> </DIV> </BODY>