#: 4685 S1/General Interest
    27-Jun-90  13:49:58
Sb: #OS9
Fm: Robb Swanson 72567,1335
To: [F] All

I am a software engineer with a company in Halifax, Nova Scotia (up in Canada
for those of you who should know better, but don't) that is involved in the
development of a VMEbus based image and digital signal processing system. 
Unlike most DSP applications, this is commercial and not military, and can be
discussed in an open forum.

We are currently in the design process for a real-time version of a system that
we have developed to this point in DOS.  To operate at the speed we require,
the system will employ extremely high data rates (on the order of 10Mhz), and
use a pipe-lined architecture.  We expect that the final system will have 4-6
single board computers (680x0 based CPUs), an array processor (probably CSPI's
SuperCard), and a suite of image processing boards from Datacube.

We are in the process of analyzing real-time operating systems, and are
considering OS-9 as our target environment.  I would like to solicit comments
or suggestions from anyone who has used OS-9 for real-time VMEbus based
systems. I am especially interestee suitability of OS-9 for use in a
multiprocessor environment.

Questions such as :

- Will OS-9 consume too many resources in a system where RAM and MIPS are at
  at premium?

- How does OS-9 perform in a multi-processor environment?

- Do you suggestping on the target, or is using either a DOS or UNIX
  based host the better method?

- Are the development tools adequate, both in terms of performance and ease
  of use?

- Are there many OS-9 drivers for such things as array processors and other
  external devices?

Any help will be greatly appreciated.



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