Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

T-Engine Enables Ubiquitous Computing

Posted by timothy on from the does-not-stand-for-turbo dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A Japanese-government sponsored research consortium that include five chip makers and 17 other Japanese high-tech firms, has announced that the T-Engine, a ubiquitous computing platform is ready for prime time. The engine is featured in a IEEE Computer Society article (PDF) and discussed more on Windley's Technometria. The system is based on the iTron real-time OS and includes multiple boards for different applications."

6 of 118 comments (clear)

  1. Re:The real question by stelmach · · Score: 3, Informative

    The article states that MontaVista has ported its real-time version of Linux to run on the T-Engine. Additionally, Windows CE and Java have also been ported. However, running these systems on the T-Engine is known as running 'guest operating systems', which is a fancy word for 'translated operating sytems'.

  2. Re:um? by RegularFry · · Score: 3, Informative

    So it's an embedded computing platform?
    Nope, it's a standard for implementing a family of embedded computing platforms.

    This is better because it gives you a highly configurable operating system, with all that that implies, on top of your READILY AVAILABLE ARM core. Or an i486. Or any of a small bucketload of other SOC configurations. Anywhere from 8-bit to 32-bit. You get scheduling. You get (soon, I think - can't remember if it's actually in yet) a TCP/IP stack. You get memory management. And more. You also get interoperability and a choice of suppliers. All of this is readily discoverable from the links in TFA, but I guess you knew that and were just testing.

    --
    Reality is the ultimate Rorschach.
  3. ob. link by pario · · Score: 3, Informative

    As always, the TRON Web is the most valuable source of infomation on the TRON project in English.
    You can find some good articles on the T-Engine platform here.

  4. It's a "loose standard"... by argent · · Score: 2, Informative

    This diagram on this page shows in general terms how they're addressing this.

  5. Nobody cares about TRON outside of Japan by heli_flyer · · Score: 4, Informative

    I used to work at Hitachi America so I know about TRON/iTRON/microITRON/etc. It's this weird, baroque API that's non-POSIX and not standard C library compatible. Kind of like an extreme example of Not-Invented-Here syndrome. For some reason Hitachi Japan thought everyone wanted it without realizing that nobody outside Japan cared about it. We kinda tried to humor them..."sure, we will distribute microITRON if customers ask for it".

  6. Re:iTron by torpor · · Score: 2, Informative

    check the table headed "Table 4: ITRON-specification kernel implementations".. each one of these companies has an iTron kernel implemented somewhere.

    i myself have personally worked with/reverse engineered the Morson Japan kernels, as these are commonly used in high-end/professional digital audio devices, such as the Yamaha A3000/A4000/A500 samplers, digital mixers, etc.

    iTron is out there, but you really have to pry open the box ..

    --
    ; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --