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From: rml@hpfcdc.HP.COM (Bob Lenk)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: real-time Unix Systems
Message-ID: <5740012@hpfcdc.HP.COM>
Date: Thu, 20-Aug-87 19:06:36 EDT
Article-I.D.: hpfcdc.5740012
Posted: Thu Aug 20 19:06:36 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 23-Aug-87 14:38:58 EDT
References: <2663@bobkat.UUCP>
Organization: HP Ft. Collins, Co.
Lines: 23

> Real-time and Unix are, like army and intellegence, mutually exclusive
> terms!  Unix is a time sharing system and in no stretch of the
> imagination can be "real-time".  

This depends on your definition of "UNIX" or "real-time".  Certainly you
there are real-time tasks that can't be handled by the UNIX(r) system
shipped by AT&T.  On the other hand, there is no reason a system can't
be built that has all the external appearance of "UNIX" and also handles
real-time tasks.  Certainly a system won't do a very good job of
handling close to its hardware's capacity of both real-time and
timesharing demands simultaneously, but that doesn't mean one can't do a
good job with reasonable loads of each type separately and perhaps even
with limited mixtures.

> Gould CSD is working on a "real-time" unix as well as a "secure"
> unix.

Many vendors are working on or shipping both, and many customers are
looking for or using both.  Some such systems may not be very good at
being "real-time", "secure", or "UNIX" by your definition or mine, but
that doesn't mean that this is impossible.

		Bob Lenk (hpfcla!rml)