Overview Of Real Time Computer Systems Technical Analysis Of The Modcomp Implementation Of A Proprietary System Max Iv And Real Time Unix System Real

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Overview of Real-time Computer Systems Technical Analysis of the Modcomp Implementation of a Proprietary System MAX IV'' and Real-time UNIX System REAL

There many applications throughout industry and government requiring real-time computing. Any application that monitors and/or controls a process would fit into this category. Some examples are: Nuclear power plants, Steel mills, Space program, etc. General Atomics uses eight real-time computer systems for control and high speed data acquisition required to run the nuclear fusion experiments. Real-Time computing can be defined as the ability to respond to asynchronous external events in a predictable (preferably fast) time frame. Real-Time computer systems are similar to other computers in many ways and may by used for general computing requirements such as Time-Sharing. However special hardware, operating systems and software had to be developed to meet the requirement for real-time computing. Traditionally, real-time computing has been a realm of proprietary operating systems with real-time applications written in FORTRAN and assembly language. In the past, these systems adequately served the needs of the real-time world. Many of these systems that were developed 15 years ago are still being used today. However the real-time world is now changing, demanding new systems to be developed. This paper gives a description of general real-time computer systems and how they differ from other systems. However, the main purpose of this paper is to give a detailed technical description of the hardware and operating systems of an existing proprietary system and a real-time UNIX system. The two real-time computer systems described in detail are Modcomp Classic III/95 with the MAX IV operating system and Modcomp TRI-D 9750 with the REAL/IX. 2 operating system.