Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!lll-winken!uunet!bellcore!att!cbnews!cbnewsm!gregk
From: gregk@cbnewsm.att.com (gregory.p.kochanski)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Real time unix?
Message-ID: <1991Jan30.235536.13416@cbnewsm.att.com>
Date: 30 Jan 91 23:55:36 GMT
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 11

Is there a real time unix which might allow me to read or write to a device
in 50 microseconds or less?  To be more specific, I do experimental physics,
and am basically poking around, looking at atoms on surfaces with a tunneling
microscope.  This is an experiment where the software and hardware need to
be closely coupled.  Basically, you read a word from a A-D converter,
do a few computations, and output a word or two to a D-A converter.

The computations are not stylized enough or simple enough to convenientlyy
put in a device driver (and I'm not that masochistic, anyway).
Are there unixes where this is possible?  Perhaps allowing a user
program direct access to some hardware, and locking processes in the CPU?