Microware Upgrades OS-9

By Michael Foley

(03/14/01, 05:43:01 PM EDT)

Microware Systems Corporation announced availability of OS-9 version 3.0 for the Hitachi SH-3 and SH-4 32-bit RISC processors. POSIX threads support has also been added to the existing secure process-based kernel of the Microware OS-9.

The Hitachi SH-3 and SH-4 are 32-bit RISC microprocessors developed for use in various embedded devices, especially personal information electronics requiring sophisticated onscreen displays, such as consumer multimedia appliances, car navigation systems, and devices like handheld computers and PDAs.

This release of OS-9 version 3.0 for SuperH includes the following:

• Process model RTOS with threads support. Applications demanding fault tolerance and high reliability work best with this type of RTOS.
• POSIX extensions supporting lightweight threads and POSIX-style signals. This enables faster reuse of software from UNIX/Linux environments, as well as the kernels that support only threads.
• Threads that use less memory than processes. This may permit a system to be configured with less RAM, resulting in cost and power savings.
• Threads that simplify some multi-tasking program structures. This makes programs easier to write and maintain.
• Microware's threads implementation that follows the widely used POSIX threads API. This reduces the training required for threads programming and eases source code portability.
• Support for robust audio encoding and decoding. LI>Enhanced PersonalJava for OS-9 implementation to the latest Sun release.
• Support for IEEE 1394 and USB.

OS-9 version 3.0 is available now.