> Hello,
> 
> I was asked to demonstrate RTLinux to research group at the university
> (TU-Darmstadt).  They are now using proprietery RT OS.
> 
> All wenn well and we had usually about 5us irq latency.  The problem
> was every now and then the latency got as high as 20-25 micro seconds.
> 
> That is way to much.
> 
> I was running this on a Intel Celeron 300A with ISA timercard giving
> interrupt and the IRQ-handler sending one pulse to the Parallel-Port.
> RedHat 7.2 with RTLinux 3.1 on Kernel 2.4.4 and KDE. (I know ISA isn't
> the best for RT but it shouldn't matter with this test).
>

off corse it ill mater for this test - you are blocking the bus with the isa card 
atleast for a few mycroseconds you can pull the bus to its knees and that means that 
the entire system is slowing down .
 
> My question is:   Is it known what programs/tasks could be blocking
> interrupts?  Wouldn't it be possible to not run those programs to
> guaranty shorter responce time ?
>

You will have a hard time guaranteeing response imes below 20us if
you have ISA cards in the system - this level of response definitly depends a lot on
tha hardware you select .

 
> I would apreciate any info.
>

you could through out the isa card and use the paralell port to demonstrate interrupt 
response - trigger it on Pin 10 and let the rt-handler answer on D0-D7 that should be 
well below 20us - but remember that if you have multiple interrupt sources - let say 
mouse+keybord+harddrive+network+timer-card then there always is the (rare) posibility 
that they all fire at the SAME time and the interrupt emulation code must be run 5 
times befor your handler gets a chance to answer on the parallel port - then the 20us 
may be hard to guarantee....
This is though a hardware limit that you are hitting not a software problem.

hofrat
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