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ALMA Memo #285

Choice of Real-Time Operating System for ALMA

P.T. Wallace
European ALMA Software Advisory Group
Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, UK
07 February 2000

ALMA computing requirements span almost the entire available range of technologies, from custom chips to supercomputers. Consequently, we foresee a wide variety of machines and operating systems being used; there is clearly no serious prospect of adopting a single platform for all ALMA purposes. However, there is a category of ALMA application, which includes antenna and correlator control, that traditionally is implemented using a real time operating system (RTOS); it may at least be possible to agree on just one RTOS for the whole project.

Early discussions touched upon several possibilities, including Windows CE, ECos, LynxOS and OS9, but the only serious contenders to emerge were VxWorks and RT-Linux. Opinions were polarized between these two choices.


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Last modified: February 15, 2000

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