Real-Time Programming: A Guide to 32-Bit Embedded Development [With *]

by Robert Moote, Rick Grehan, Ingo Cyliax

Real-time embedded systems have rigid requirements and must conform to strict size, cost, weight, power, operation, and response-time specifications. They must be crash-proof and must operate under a... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0201485400
• ISBN13: 9780201485400
• Release Date: January 1998
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
• Length: 720 Pages
• Weight: 2.07 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 7.5" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Good Book, Wrong Title

What this book is: An introduction to developing for single-board computer (SBC) platforms (Intel x86), including interesting topics like connecting to pushbuttons and LCD displays. I personally found the book very interesting, as it's focused on x86-based embedded systems, rather than traditional embedded processors.What this book is not: It's not about real-time programming - it's about SBC programming and the nuances of embedded systems. Coverage of true real-time techniques is very cursory, as mentioned here in another review about scheduling (likewise for subjects like de-bouncing of inputs and watchdog circuitry).On the positive side, there is a progressive collection of examples that implement each of the principles presented. The code is included on the CD, along with a demo development library to build the examples. By including the demo library, the reader can get kick-started, even if they ultimately switch to another kernel.On the negative side, the entire book is a heavily product-specific discussion around the PharLap RTOS kernel included on the CD (which is a crippled license for prototyping only). All the examples are dependent upon the reader using the PharLap kernel and a Windows-based machine with Microsoft's Visual C++ compiler.In short: All in all, I found this book was a worthy addition to my library, and a great introduction to some of the issues and techniques that are unique to programming embedded PCs.I'm glad I bought it, but I would have been happier if it had included coverage of other kernels (like embedded Linux), and an intro to some of the alternatives to x86-based CPUs. I was also disappointed that PharLap disabled Borland C++ support in the demo license - the logic for this escapes me.