BOUNCE rtl@rtlinux.org: Approval required: (fwd)

[Der Herr Hofrat <der.herr@hofr.at>]

>From owner-rtl Fri Aug 10 15:29:17 2001
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From: "Gearheart, Todd" <todd.gearheart@flightsafety.com>
To: "'Dick Skaggs'" <dskaggs@netpass.com>
Cc: "RTLinux newsgroup (E-mail)" <rtl@www.rtlinux.org>
Subject: RE: [rtl] HARD real-time DOS/Win98
Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2001 17:29:14 -0400
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Hi Dick,

Win98 is running in "background" as a non-raltime task. So any Windoze apps
would NOT be hard real-time. There would also be a problem in "hooking" your
windoze code to Linux. Although it could be done easily via the disk
filesystem or possibly via a socket.

One possible fix for a windoze based app. (designed to communicate with
specialized hardware) might be to re-write the "specialized hardware driver"
(on the windoze side) to direct all I/O through a socket connection. This
could then be caught and serviced via your real-time code running under RTL
(although all windoze calculations/interaction would be "soft" in nature).

neTraverse Win4Lin is NOT an emulator. Instead it uses a kernel patch,
specialized device drivers, and memory management trickery to make an X task
"appear" to be a standard DOS box. (they even have their own ROM code). Thus
Win98 installs and runs at full speed. It never "knows" it is running under
X. It is slick, clean, and reliable. PLUS it only costs $89.95!

Hope this helps!
Regards,
Todd Gearheart

-----Original Message-----
From: Dick Skaggs [mailto:dskaggs@netpass.com]
Sent: Friday, August 10, 2001 1:48 PM
To: Todd Gearheart
Subject: Re: [rtl] HARD real-time DOS/Win98


Hi, Todd-
    I am very interested in your post below, but am not sure of what exactly
it
means.
    I am just getting into Linux and haven't yet got to RTL. I want to run a
three axis machine tool with RTL. It is a rather simple machine, an X, Y, Z
(or
is it C?) gantry type machine to cut profiles in a 4 ft x 10 ft x 2" soft
fiberglass material used in building construction. I thought to use RTL, EMC
software, with a G code library to index machine head through it's cutting
cycles.
    I do not know neTraverse Win4Lin3.0. What does it do? One of the
problems I
think I have is that I won't be able to use existing Windows software that
could be used to drive my machine. This means, of course, generating a lot
of
new G code software, and I am not a coder. Is your finding possibly a
solution
to my problem? I don't think I would have to have "hard" RT control, if I
understand the meaning of "hard" correctly.

Dick Skaggs
Orlando



Gearheart, Todd" wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> I have "stumbled upon" and have been playing with neTraverse Win4Lin 3.0.
> With the idea of being able to run Win98 apps in background (under normal
> Linux). While my flight sim(s) run under rtlinux.
>
> I have kernel 2.2.19 patched with Win4Lin 3.0.1 and RTL 3.0 running. I
have
> been able to run a ported level D flight simulator under RTL while running
> Win98, Outlook, Word, Excel, Iexplorer 5 (it's rather interesting to run
> Netscape and IE5 at the same time), etc. Worst case jitter is in the
50usec
> range.
>
> HOWEVER I have to do a few rather strange and bizarre things to keep the
> whole mess from locking up the box. Still if I "hold my tongue right" the
> whole mess runs reliably, and flawlessly for weeks at a time. I would
> **LOVE** some help resolving the "bizarreness" that still exists. If we
can
> do this, we will have a viable, reliable hard real-time Win98 solution
> (a-la-Linux)!
>
> Best Regards,
>          Todd Gearheart
>    Software Engineer Dept 041
>    FlightSafety International
>    Simulation Systems Division
>  Todd.Gearheart@Flightsafety.com
>          (316) 612-5356
>

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