Bob,
Would you have an opinion on Winds port of their VxWorks to the
PSC1000 microprocessor from Patriot Scientific? Most specifically
what are the applications you see for this technology, if any.
I think this is a positive move. If you accept the assertion that Java (for intelligent appliances, PersonalJava) is the only application environment which has the widespread industry and developer support to serve as an alternative to WinCE in this space, then Java-enabled hardware becomes a great performance enhancer and differentiator. While VxWorks, pSOS, OS-9, and QNX are used in a great number of devices, very few developers write applications (as opposed to system software) based on these platforms. PersonalJava becomes a very important component sitting atop the RTOS allowing these devices to run standard apps without having to fight for mindshare from developers, who often won't consider a platform that doesn't have tens of millions of potential users (and don't forget that these devices use a bunch of different processors, so without PersonalJava developers would have to recompile for every combination of RTOS and CPU).
I expect to see many more CPU's with hardware Java-support; Fujitsu, IBM, LG, Rockwell, and others have licenses to Sun's PicoJava core technology and will presumably release chips, but as far as I know the PSC1000 is the first general purpose CPU with Java support currently available. Patriot will have a challenge competing against Motorola, IBM, and the other "big boys", however. I believe the chip could be useful in settop boxes, PDA's, screen phones, kiosks, and other similar devices, depending on power consumption, cost, and other specifications.
Bill |
