Want to know why many developers have chosen Windows Embedded for their real-time computing solutions? Read technical articles, case studies, and independent viewpoints on real time, and learn which Windows Embedded operating system might be right for you.
Real Time with Windows Embedded
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
I think we should be critical of all OS news from the companies. No one has directly attacked you, they simply asked a question, albeit sarcastically, of if this was biased or not. I think calling it an “ad” may have gone too far.
The “independant viewpoints” were humorous though. Basically read Mr. O’Keefe’s article first. He works for a company that builds real-time extensions into Windows. Why would the company do this? As Mr. O’Keefe says, “Microsoft Windows XP has been designed as a general-purpose operating system, suitable for use both as an interactive system on the desktop and on a network; however, Windows XP and Windows XP Embedded are not real-time operating systems.” Basically, they are taking care of the fact that Microsoft doesn’t create a realtime operating system. In fact, his company’s business prior to this was to do the same thing on UNIX operating systems.
Now we read Mr. Frampton’s reason’s for choosing Windows over other operating systems: “I have developed systems in DOS, Forth, Intel’s RMX, QNX and PSOS. None of these platforms provides the total combination of graphics, communications technologies, integration technologies, and most importantly real-time capabilities. Windows CE .NET is a unique platform for developing complete industrial automation solutions.” (emphasis mine)
Is there some inconsistency here? I think so. From Mr. O’Keefe we learn that any OS can be made into a realtime system, given a large enough latency. From Mr. Frampton we are to assume that the only OS out of that list which can do all of these things and be realtime is Windows CE .NET. Interesting…
(..) “The core configuration of the Burny 10 platform includes a 433MHz Intel processor, 256MB RAM, and hard drive capacity of 4.3 gigabytes.” (..)
I’am not sure it’s about an embedded OS :p
it’s always evil when Microsoft makes statements about its products but when RedHat, Linus, IBM (the new boy-love of open source fantatics) the KDE-people, and others make comments they are to be shown respect…crap!
Just think how the open source babies would throw hissy fits if we second-guessed and attacked with venom everything Linus, RedHat, et al said about their products and basically said their statements are rubbish because they are just trying to get attention for their products.
Perhaps everytime an open source developer talks about his project he should also be crucified.
Microsoft is the most successful software company in the history of universe…HA HA HA!
Perhaps everytime an open source developer talks about his project he should also be crucified.
100% correct. Why shouldn’t we apply critical thinking to all news announcements? I quoted one inconsistency in the linked articles, there are probably many more. If I find inconsistencies in other sites, Apple’s or who ever else, then I point them out as well. We should never automatically take what we read as truth. Luckily, we sometimes have the luxury of time to scrutinize.
They are two different products, so there isn’t an inconsistency between the O’Keefe and Frampton articles from that viewpoint.
After skimming the page and those it links to, I am left with the impression that it’s primary purpose is to blur the definition of “Real Time” to make it seem as though the Windows program is suitable for this type of application. Windows embedded is one thing, Windows Real Time sounds scary.
Windows XP Embedded is easy to play with if you get Winternals ERD Commander. http://www.winternals.com . You can add in some stuff like Telnet.exe and http://FTP.exe and the Offbyone browser to the bootable CD which works on machines below XP minimum requirements.
It seems suprising to me that Microsoft would license to Winternals after the controversy they started with NTtune.
Gosh Eugenia, watch that blood pressure!
Not many peoples has expirience in realtime/embedded systems.
That’s why such texts (as in article’s link to microsoft.com) can be widespreaded in the Net and in the paper magazines without being stopped by high level of laugh (typical reaction if you understand that it’s yet another marketing bull….t). It’s ok, because everybody can freely advertise their products, write articles about “time to switch, buy out products”. But such articles should receive reply from people who know the real story, the true. In this case the true is that Win CE is a fat slow crap with ugly architecture. On the other hand – QNX is a beautiful real RTOS, with great architecture, implementation and is a pleasure to use in embedded systems. These two sentences are result of my study [of available RTOS systems on the market] and work [with best of them – QNX]. If cynical tech-person like me using words like “beautiful”, “great” – this can give you a hint about real capabilities of discussed system. But the best way – is to learn everything by yourself. My words like “great”, etc. are not technically enough, so it’s a good idea to start from _technical_ comparison of available systems. I can recommend the group of _independent_experts_ http://www.dedicated-systems.com. Their results are politically correct, with brief (just introducion) description of OS archs, good and bad places in every OS and finally correct benchmarks and overall score. All reports can be freely downloaded from http://www.dedicated-systems.com/Encyc/
And other technical documentation can be found at http://www.qnx.com
So, learn and work – it’s the only way to know the true.
I do not trust anything i hear from microsoft because they lie through their teeth. Could future articles come from thrid party sources?
Yes and No.
If there are interesting articles from third parties about Microsoft products that you would like to submit, we will post them. If they are not, and if it happens (like in this case) that a big update on the Microsoft site has happened that includes new articles, WE WILL post them too.
We have nothing against Microsoft, in fact we do support them, the way we support anyone else. They have 95% of the computer world, which is a good enough reason for us to support them and report on their news.
If you are to say that someone (anyone) is lieing, I would suggest you explain yourself before you do such accusations. And you should have the guts to include a name and email on your comment.
Thank you.
None of ’em
There’s nothing on this site that says publicity stuff released from a company is not allowed. In fact, the only way some things are EVER known about is because of corporate publicity stuff. Despite everything, it is still possible for a company to keep something secret, for a while, even.
I suppose it would make many people feel better if Eugenia included some extra information–either “Our take: …” or “From the Microsoft web site: …” Otherwise, it may lead people to believe that OSNews really does endorse Windows XP Embedded and Windows CE-dot-Net, which is untrue.
–JM
From time to time I visit the Embedded Systems Conference shows where all the real RT vendors show up, along with MS the great pretender and lots of HW vendors with oddball cpus.
Guess what, the SW engineers are usually to be found in the real RT vendor booths, the MS booth is usually empty. I find it quite amusing that even though MS is always trying to push a square peg in a round hole, well if any engineer is stupid enough to fall for that, shame on their company. Less competition for the rest of us. As a HW engineer, I don’t pick OSs, I do pick the HW components, if I even suggested using MS for RT, I would be discredited.
Since OSnews is for all OS coverage, you could probably get some RT OS coverage by visiting one of these shows when it comes to your local, which would be Embedded Systems Conference San Francisco at Moscone from April 22-26 2003. You could get quite alot of articles from that, you can usually get free exhibit passes. Since you are in the bay area, you have the advantage of lots of HW-SW shows coming your way.
Is m$ releasing objective and independent reviews on their site?
I may be about ten years out of date in embedded tech, but I thought one of the definitions of an embedded OS was being Rom-able. (but then, I’m used to dealing with single board PC-104 systems) While I could see that with WinCE (since it is embedded in the little pad thingies… sorry, personal predjudice against toys), I don’t even want to think about how much enough EEPROMS to store that sucker would cost, much less getting a board to support fast enough a CPU. The top of Megatel’s product line is a P266 for pete’s sake, and even with M-Systems flash rom disks that’s gonna take a good number at 144mb a pop.
As to any windows other than CE for realtime apps, that’s just retarded. I know a number of companies do it, lottery here in New Hampshire comes to mind, they use Win98 on the lottery machines, much to their repeated expense. I’m becoming increasingly disgusted with the increasing use of sledgehammers to solve fly sized problems. Another company I used to work for was using win95 on their cash registers!!! CASH REGISTERS FOR GOD’s SAKE!!! Ran slow as molassas, god help you if you were updating the PLU tables, and after a year of frustration they told the company that talked them into it to take the damn things back, and they put the old 80C85 based boxes back on the counters, which despite using a 3mhz processor and a measly 32K of ram ran smooth as silk compared to the clunky windows boxes.
When, WHEN, WHENNN??? IS THIS @#$% GOING TO STOP!?!?!
Sorry, needed to vent.
hahahahaha
Ping port 80, win $2,000,000