This thread has either gotta end or turn towards linux in some way. I'm
gonna try the latter.
Warning: This mail is long. Ignore if you're not interested in pushing
linux to the limits.
On Tue, 9 May 2000, Ravindra Jaju wrote:
> > Superman is faster than a speeding bullet,
>
> Faster than a photon (sorry, GTR/STR).
>
> I remember one of the parts where Superman actually travelled faster than
> a photon and got back his GF who got crushed under loads of earth. ;-)
That was caused by a nuclear explosion on the San Andreas fault line by
Lex Luthor. Supes could have stopped it, but promised Ms. Hackensack
(nice name) that he'd save her mother first.
Linux turn. Now, given that linux can already make coffee (Read the
Hotwo), lets get in on other ways of doing everyday tasks with linux. I
don't think any of us are confident enough to think about programming
nukes under any system so lets leave that aside.
One of my friends writes code for airplanes in assembly. They use
assembly primarily because the hardware is pretty customised and older
software already existed for it. They also need some amount of speed.
Now, given the monolithic nature of the linux kernel, I think it could be
optimised to work on specialised hardware. Not just aircraft, but many
other devices.
I was once asked to write a multitasked socket client program on an
attendance record terminal. It's a small terminal with a little LCD
display and a couple of keys and an IR bar code scanner. The hardware was
intel based (I assumed so since it was running MS-DOS). I turned down the
offer when I heard about the MS-DOS thing. Writing a multitasked socket
client is no problem, but doing so in MSD is.
I was wondering, what would it take to get linux onto this terminal? It
has little memory, some sort of secondary storage, the LCD output, a
buzzer, a light that flashes when the buzzer goes off, a numeric keypad
and the bar code scanner. It also has a standard ethernet card to connect
to the network.
We'd need drivers for all of these devices, and then everything should go
okay.
The hitch is that this system has 128KB RAM. Do you think that we could
get linux to run on it? It would be a very customised distribution and
would have nothing more than it needs.
Is it possible?
Does anyone have other ideas on how linux can be moved into similar
embedded systems? Maybe we could have the entire house running linux. Or
would that be Java?
Philip
--
To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.
-- Thomas Edison
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