Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : e.Digital Corporation(EDIG) - Embedded Digital Technology -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mark cox who wrote (12101)	4/6/2000 11:34:00 PM
From: bob	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 18366

Informative post on RB from TOBAGO in response to a question as to why MicroOS isn't found in any hand held devices yet. Why MicroOS is not in Today's devices Your question is understandable so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you are sincere. MicroOS was initially developed for Voice editing in a handheld Flash environment where complex Flash editing had to be extremely efficient. You could not afford to take more memory cycles than you absolutely needed to read & write data. Today's applications that use Flash memory do not need the added Flash editing efficiency that MicroOS provides since their memory editing requirements are simple. A cell phone, for example, only used to store phone numbers for retrieval would not need MicroOS. PDA's are more involved but still their memory editing requirements are straight forward. MicroOS would be overkill in these applications. Now tomorrow's PDA with VTT/TTV requirements can not longer afford to waste memory cycles by inefficient memory editing. The same goes for Multi CODEC/DRM music players that have to decode various CODECS at speed (note: decompression coefficients are stored in the flash memory to do this real time without special hardware). To understand why Flash memory is difficult to edit efficiently, you need to know that Flash memory is segmented into blocks of 512 bytes. You can not edit a single cell of Flash memory. Instead, you must erase all 512 bytes of a block segment and rewrite all 512 bytes when all you really wanted to do was change one memory cell. Check out e.Digital's patents on Flash File management. They are key to understanding how MicroOS makes addressing each memory cell independently as efficiently as possible. The fact that MicroOS has an extremely small footprint (> 8k), helps to manage power consumption, and helps to reduce Flash Wear Leveling is only icing on the cake.