ITRON 4.0.0 Specification in English

Romuald Lobet lobet.romuald at gmx.de
Mon Jan 13 17:27:59 UTC 2003


Joel Sherrill wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Apparently, the English translation of the ITRON 4.0.0 specification 
> was released last year.  It is available at:
> 
> http://www.assoc.tron.org/eng/document.html
> The current RTEMS ITRON support is based upon the 3.0 version of the
> specification.  
> 
> Personally I would love to see the implementation updated to the
> 4.0 revision.  There are a handful of ways this could happen:
> 
>   + sponsor OAR to update the implementation
>   + volunteer to update a manager as a personal project
>   + student project
>   + class project -- the bulk of the initial 3.0 implementation 
>     was done by a graduate real-time class I taught.
> 
> ITRON support in RTEMS has always been a pet idea of mine.  I would
> love to see it updated and know that someone is using it. 
> 
> -- 
> Joel Sherrill, Ph.D.             Director of Research & Development
> joel at OARcorp.com                 On-Line Applications Research
> Ask me about RTEMS: a free RTOS  Huntsville AL 35805
> Support Available                (256) 722-9985
> 

Dear Joel,

As young developer in the field of embedded system, I believe a lot in 
the TRON project. The project being in continuous development thanks 
to membership like those involved in OAR, a lot of improvements have
been made in the specification documents as time goes by.

The specification document is the key point toward the compatibility.
Also, it helps to promote the concept toward all industrial firms.
Further more, opening the specifications to the end-user helps 
everyone to take the full advantage of the concepts detailed through-
out the document.

In turn, every developer takes the full understanding of the design thanks
to a faithful explanations detailed in the specifications that serves as
guideline, 
and helps them to follow the main development stream in the meantime.

Me too, I would be happy to see the ITRON being implemented in the 
frame of RTEMS. RTEMS is aimed to comply with the hardest constrains
imposed in time critical and safety critical applications like military or 
space engines. Its compatibility with the ADA environment makes it
very suitable for a broad range of applications. The extension
to the TRON specification will enhance this effectively.

Unfortunately, it is not obvious for foreign newbies to point out the 
main development stream of RTEMS. The internal function of tasking 
and the real-time behaviour of the kernel are not well explained in 
the documents provided with the distribution. 

The fact that RTEMS is able to support *everything* (ITRON, POSIX, 
ADA, ...) makes the understanding of your development efforts quite 
difficult. Finally, the "hard real-time embedded operating system" looks 
a bit heavy, not a brilliant characteristic for a development that claim
to be secure. Far away from your daily dialogues that occure in this 
discussion group, normal human being would lose thrust in the end. 

Regarding the implementation of ITRON 3.0 -  I postulated the code I 
went though is the actual development stage, the development was 
hold far below the minimal implementation level and currently stand
as low as the basic task control. 

Note, the POSIX does not have the same level of criticity as ITRON.
POSIX is intrinsicaly heavier than ITRON, because it is aimed to work
on much bigger computing power. So, TRON project found a work-
around to this dilema by defining implementation levels and by writing
separate specification documents. This point is very important for 
embedded system, because is has big influences on the responce time.
Both POSIX and ITRON being present in the same RTEMS project, clear 
separation have to be set in order to make the operating system
efficient for all applications it is aimed to work in.

The efforts made in this context will take their full freedom when the 
project will be driven in separate fields depending on the final application
and their particular targets will be defined. 

I undersigned
A critical watcher.

-- 
****************************************
Thank you for having faithfully read this message.

Best regards,

Romuald Lobet
****************************************

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