Embedded Linux On a Digital Stethoscope

Posted by timothy on Tuesday December 25, 2007 @08:52AM from the bump-a-bump-a-bump-a-bump dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A team of electrical and computer engineering students at Calvin College is designing a digital electronic stethoscope running uClinux as its operating system. While there are many embedded devices built on Linux operating systems, medical devices running open-source software are extremely rare because of the perceived difficulty in obtaining FDA validation. The device is in its early stages of development, but major hardware choices have been made, and the team has recently released a Project Proposal and Feasibility Study."

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Re:Why? by nospam007 · 2007-12-25 22:37 · Score: 0, Redundant

OK I'll bite. Why does a stethoscope need an OS in the first place? How much file I/O, multitasking, networking etc. does a single-purpose device like this really do?
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Linux is used to make the device much colder much faster.