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QNX RTP Running on iPaq
An anonymous reader sends in: "iPaq just got new gracious looks. QNX microkernel and the gracious Photon micro GUI did wonders to iPaq. Get a sneak preview here. If you are in Boston next week, be sure to drop by Embedded Systems Boston to try your hands at the qPaq... ;)"
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These PDAs are getting neater and more powerful every day, but when are they going to be real machines?
I mean, eventually we could have a setup where you would buy a full size monitor and keyboard for office and home, and then just buy one little Super PDA to plug the monitor and keyboard into to use as a full PC. If they can get wireless networking down into that size package (which I'm sure they will eventually) you'd even be able to network without current crappy PDA packet modems or anything like that.
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
Your laughter is borne out of ignorance. Everybody publishes OS times for their OS when running in kernel mode only (which offers zero protection from processes run amok). But CE and EPOC don't run in that mode--you can't on these platforms since they're open and could be running malicious code.
To wit, look at QNX (http://www.qnx.com/products/os/qnxrtos.html#Perfo rmance) and On Time
(http://www.on-time.com/index.html?page=rtk45.htm) . Great numbers, but only
for kernel mode operation.
For protected systems using the MMU, it seems all the big players don't publish numbers. Why? Because this is a tough environment and the numbers look like shit. QNX offers nothing on their site about their Neutrino product performance. Neither do Mentor or Wind River.
Even the RT Linux folks are flaky here. http://www.zentropix.com/support/document/helpdox/ rtai.pdf claims they can
deliver a 4 uS average interrupt response time with 13 uS of jitter,
resulting in 17 uS worst case interrupt response time. This is on a 233 MHz
Pentium II.
Microsoft are claiming 7.5 uS worst case ISR latency on a 90 MHz Pentium II for CE (http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/techart/real_pe rf.htm). We're
seeing similar numbers on a StrongARM platform at a similar clock.
Clearly, CE is probably on par with the QNX/PSOS/VRTX crowd.
So, until Symbian actually publish some numbers on their interrupt performance, we can assume that, like code size, they are merely FUD'ing the industry.
As for the topic at hand, however, it's wonderful to see something like QNX running on iPac, maybe make one worth getting after all ;)
...but isn't this supposed to be a PDA? Look at the screenshots again... look at the 10 apps.... where is "Calendar"? -- where is "Contacts"? -- where is "E-mail"? -- where is "To Do List"?
Beautiful OS, but clearly not an organizer.
The definition of PDA == organizer is far too restrictive. After all, PDA is supposed to be a 'personal digital assistant' or 'personal data assistant' or something else involving 'personal' and 'assistant.'
An assitant assists, in whatever a person needs done with data when on the move. That does not mean calendar, contacts and to-do for every person; some people do other stuff with data and with their lives. Should they not have PDAs? The Palm crowd especially seem violently opposed to devices assisting anyone but executives who have too many meetings to keep. I for one am glad that the PocketPC has become more flexible, so that it can assist everyone to some extent, rather than only assisting the rich, anal executive in the expensive suit.
Keep your Palm, but I have no use for it. I will, however, continue to use PocketPC/WindowsCE.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
There is an application running called ipaq_input. It takes care of resizing apps and coming forward when they need/want input (handwriting, keyboard, etc). You can see from the screen shots that it is forward when the URL area is in focus and the terminal always requets to have the input area present.
........ "The faster I go, the behinder I get" - Lewis Carroll
First of all - those numbers are for QNX4 (our previous generation kernel, x86 only). The iPaq is running QNX6. And we do have numbers - I am not sure if they are posted on our website yet or not but they are going to be made with each and every release. And yet another thing - QNX isn't your average monolithic kernel. There is no "kernel" mode for timings that mean anything. Everything is based on a message passing infustructure (from device drivers to networking to filesystems to the GUI).
........ "The faster I go, the behinder I get" - Lewis Carroll
I have two different replies for you; one to why QPE is not better, and one about your GPL zinger....
Firstly reasons to chose QNX over QPE for your iPaq...
(1) QPE has alot of legacy attached to it.
(2) Qt applications can already run fine in QNX so all they really need is a recompile to work.
(3) It's cheeper to develop on QNX then QPE.
(4) It's bulky, really bulky - QNX can run quite comfortably in 5 megs of RAM - QPE requires much more.
(5) It's prettier... sorry, it just is.
Now the GPL issue..
Sorry to tell you but the GPL is not a good thing (TM).
Software on the QNX version of the iPaq can use the GPL if the author desires, however many real embeded developers have a great dislike for it (for many reasons). In fact, I'd like to tell you a little story.
Back before QNX 6.0 was released to the public QNX uses ALSA for sound... for it seemed like a good idea at the time - "simply tweek the drivers and recompile for QNX" said the QSSL engineers "It'll make our jobs alot easier!" they said.
But it diddent! See, many of the big audio corporations had what is known as "propritary hardware", and in order to have a real, fully-accelerated driver they'd have to relase all their secrets to the public and their competition.
QSSL soon figured out the problems with this; Is it better to have an OS that has rocking sound with a few-closed source drivers or an OS with okay sound and a couple of problematic drivers beacuse big busness dosent wana share technical specs?
So, the poor old QSSL engineers rewrote the sound system from the ground up so it wouldnt be tainted (yes, thats the right word - tainted) by the GPL. Now big busness likes them! As they can make driver or submit secret information to QSSL under a NDA for them to make excellent drivers, plus most of the sound system is open-source (download the Audio DDK and see for yourself). It's really a win-win situation.
And remember - Many pats of QNX -ARE- open-source (not just the sound system!), and the open-source parts (for the greater part) can be used for both comercial and non comercial purpose, but are not GPL'ed.
One must NOT confuse the GPL and the open-source philosphy, as they are two different things.
The embed platform interrest is define both by the quality of the OS and a powerfull dev-kit.
.... today, a new OS just blast all this and change the init data !
... simply cristal clear : dev process is speedlight fast !
....
... they ckeck XE and you will be part of the fun.
... but the Java part is pretty impressive !
... but who can expect a whole bunch of application there when using XE we already GOT them ?! It's Java babe :)
/. linux-geeks as were my previous posts related this topics :( Thanks for the censorship ... )
The quality of the OS is important for the end-user, but the power of the dev-kit is important for the dev costs (easiest is the dev time, cheapest is the application).
But this was yesterday statement
SavaJe (a Lucent spin-off) released betas of XE, their OS for StrongARM.
What's the difference
What's the trick ?
Just one word : it's Java !
Ok, i heard Java "friends" that says, : "but how can you expect to run a java application on such a device ?"
I will add, it is not simply a java platform compatible but GUIs applications are also written in Swing !
The same "sceptics", can say not : "Gosh ! Are you kidding ?"
And there i must add : and it is damned fast !
You don't trust me, just go to www.savaje.com and download the latest beta of XE and set it up to you iPaq
But beware, it's a drug-like : once you get into no way out !
Ok, so about the specs :
- It's fully Java2 SE 1.3 compliant
- It is also JNLP compliant (cf JavaWebStart and JNLP)
Just imagine : your develop you application, click on deploy as JNLP, the type-in the URL on your ipaq and voila : the application is running on it !!!
For those who still consider that Java is just one more stupid language and not a complete new way of programming
Of course XE still lack some features (only few CF & PCCard supports), no IRDA at this time
XE for me is quite interresting in a enterprise architecture as it offer a great opportunity to leverage all the skills and legacy systems available. Creating a mobile device application has never been so easy !
As a conclusion, XE just prove that when stilled peoples work on something then impossible things can became true.
Don't get me wrong, Linux is the greatest OS for PC desktop applications
Please note that i am sure this message will be moderate down as it will hurt the
4R34'.