WINDS customers are also talking about the MSFT/CE entry into the embedded world. Here is one customer's response and opinion as posted on the VxWorks Exploder:
"X-Comment: VxWorks Users Group Discussion Exploder
Submitted Mon Apr 6 11:47:50 1998
Submitted-by: Mike McQuade
VxWorks
Even WITHOUT nested interrupts, we are only talking on the order of
~50 uSec max response time on the PowerPC, with typical response
times around 5 - 6 uSec.
CE on the other hand is in the 1 mS range for 'deterministic' response
times.
To me the bigger issues are:
1. Win32 API, MFC, et-al, can you say convoluted ?
2. With commodity software and hardware, we could have some interesting times for the software to "GPF"
- Medical Device, Oh sorry Mrs Smith, your husbands defibulator had a
"GPF", we called Dr Watson, but it was too late.
- You see the massive melt down of the Nuclear Plant was caused by a bad version on MFC, this was the pre service pack version.
- The F-15 took an abrupt turn and crashed due to an illegal instruction, we will have this fixed in CE version 04.
- Oh no someone hacked into our CE based router, I thought they used the security code from NT.
I know M$ wants the market, hell I have friends that work there, and hear horror stories all the time.
We have just shipped instrument #40 out of here, we are using VxWorks
5.3.1 and PowerPC MVME-2603s, we use NEARLY EVERYTHING in the OS, and
on this CPU board. Our customers run our instruments 24 hours a day,
they are reporting back very happy, NO lockups, NO problems.
This instrument is off to the most successful start of any we have
made. Our customers like the fact that its NOT DOS, or WINDOWS. When
they come through and see the picture of the Mars Rover on the
wall, and understand that we are using an "Industrial Strength" O/S,
the same one thats used in SPACECRAFT, they are very impressed.
I cannot imagine going to Win CE, we need to ship product, and
ship product that is reliable. By the time MickySoft ships a
stable and powerful RTOS version of CE, WindRiver will have
their next version of Tornado well into the market place.
I read somewhere that WRS made $38 Million in the last quarter,
do you think they are not pouring massive effort into the next
generation of their tools ?
There will always be markets for Wind River and others, and
I believe that some people will adopt CE / Microsoft. If we
are lucky, it will be our competition."
YAH!
-z- |
