Nancy Nicolaisen
Though embedded systems have long been featured in consumer products, many remain notoriously difficult to use. For proof, you need look no further than the fact that the most technologically advanced society in history includes many people who own VCRs that forever blink 12:00. This, however, is about to change.
Recent advances by major players in the arena of embedded operating systems portend a swelling population of appliances, remote sensing devices, and television s
ets that you'll be able to easily access from the World Wide Web using a browser.
Making embedded devices accessible through the Web elegantly removes the main barriers to their widespread exposure in consumer products: lack of an easy, standardized way to interact with embedded software and the absence of a standar
d mechanism for upgrading software after devices are deployed.
At the upstream end of this phenomenon are companies that have long specialized in creating embeddable OSes for high-tech industrial and military applications, including Phar Lap Software, Integrated Systems, Microtec, and QNX Software Systems.
Phar Lap (617-661-1510;
http://www.pharlap.com
) recently introduced its TNT Embedded Toolsuite, a package that allows designers to create embedded applications using standard Windows workstations for developing, testing, and debugging. To help promote the concept of using the Web to interact with embedded devices, Phar Lap built a
small weather
station (it measures just 3.6 by 3.8 inches) using its TNT Embedded Toolsuite (real-time edition) and the Weather Monitor II from Davis In
struments.
The Phar Lap tools construct their solution around the Win32 API, making them inherently compatible with the tens of millions of Windows 95, Windows 3.1, and Windows NT computers deployed worldwide. "It's a Windows world out there," says Phar Lap president Richard M. Smith, explaining his company's decision to use the Win32 standard rather than a proprietary solution.
By contrast, QNX (613-591-0931;
http://www.qnx.com
) offers developers a Unix-oriented toolset that features a miniaturized GUI component that resides in less than 1 MB of RAM. Together with other system software components and application data, the run-time footprint of QNX embedded systems is less than 4 MB. "You can implement full-featured Web browsing capability using small amounts of flash memory, RAM, or ROM using our tools," sa
ys QNX spokesman Greg Bergsma. QNX has announced a partnership with TV set-top box maker Welcome to the Future, which uses QNX technology to implement an "Internet Channel" capability that will be marketed by cable companies.
In the niche of high-reliability applications, Microtec (408-980-1300; http:// www.mri.com) markets a tool suite that includes a proprietary real-time OS, compilers, and debuggers, which developers use to invest devices with sophisticated remote diagnostic capability. Code for the Microtec embedded Web server resides in an astonishingly compact 16 KB, not including embedded application Web-page data. Microtec has a substantial presence in high-reliability, x86-based applications in the transportation, medical, and communications fields. This hints that many of these devices will migrate to the Web fairly quickly, since a simple and inexpensive mechanism for handling remote diagnostics and software updates could significantly reduce the cost of owning and operating complex instrumen
tation.
"It's not that we couldn't remotely access these devices before," says Paul Rosenfeld, manager of Microtec's PCx86 business unit. "It's just that HTTP confers the benefits of standardization when we access the devices and transfer data to and from them. Now anything that can run a Web browser can access embedded devices."
Integrated Systems (ISI, 408-542-1500;
http://www.isi.com
) initiated its move toward embedded Web server technology when it introduced its embedded HTTP server about a year ago. The ISI OS and tool suite are at the heart of Philips' new smart TV and several upscale models of Ungermann Bass datacomm equipment. In addition, ISI tools are currently in use in more than 50 unannounced embedded Web server projects, with about half of those under development by major multinational companie
s in the U.S., Europe, and Japan, ISI officials claim. Speculating on what has driven vendor interest in embedded Web technology, ISI vice president of marketing Greg Olson says, "We finally have a universal user interface." In a significant break with the past, this universal GUI should help result in embedded systems that require little or no training.
screen_link (38 Kbytes)
You can view data from Phar Lap's tiny weather station at
http://smallest.pharlap.com
.
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