Portos

Developer	Softwave Wireless
Category	Components & Libraries
Date Added	September 16, 2008
Rating
Downloads	95 | 65
License	Shareware

A new paradigm in Real Time Programming. For simpler, more modular and more robust code, check out Portos. No tasks, no semaphores, no mailboxes. Save stack space, save context switches, save inter-task messages. Porting the software from system simulation to real-time platform is now easier than ever.

Do We Really Need Tasks?

In order to process some jobs more urgently than others, embedded systems have traditionally used either interrupts or tasks. Interrupts have many limitations so tasks quickly became at the center of real-time programming. But in most cases, tasks are overkill! The idea is to assign a priority level (urgency level) to some job. This can be done without tasks! Tasks do serve other purposes but only on rare occasions. Most of a real-time program can run without switching between tasks.

By associating a priority level to a task, which is a collection of functions, traditional real-time programming created unncessary bottleneck and complexity. In Portos, we break this association by directly associating the priority level to a function! We call it a priority function. Bottleneck and complexity created by tasks and inter-task communications suddenly go away. In addition, a preprocessor or compiler can simplify and optimize the function calls.

Supported Platforms

The first Portos version is now available as an add-on library to the Texas Instruments BIOS. It works on all DSP supported by the TI BIOS. The next Portos version will be a stand-alone kernel for the ARM processor.

Free Trial

You can test-drive Portos with a 4 months free trial.