.NET Micro Framework

This from Microsoft

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leads to this

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- claims ~35x35mm module, and says this

"The most notable aspect of the .NET Micro Framework is that it does not need any underlying operating system. The Micro Framework requires very little in the way of system resources thus reducing the overall cost of a system. (The minimum memory resources are about 384K of FLASH/ROM and

256K of RAM)"

Any one used this ? - the claims of 384KF/256KR on one page and

512KF/256KR on another, do not say what that is capable of running, nor minimul program sizes. Speed is also not discussed.

If this downloads/runs MSIL instructions, pgms should be relatively small.

This is not that far above present single chip resource. Flash is well past 384/512KF, on top end devices, but few devices currently have 256KR. Some of this could move into ROM.

This could change the resorce targets for chip release ?

-jg

Reply to
Jim Granville
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Since this is MS first attempt at an RTOS for non-MMU machines, my guess is that the 256 kB will provide you with a simple round-robin scheduler (no preemptive multitasking) and non-nestable interrupts. If you want to add any actual applications, then memory needs will grow ;-)

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Reply to
Ulf Samuelsson

There is nothing realtime about the .NET Mircro Framework their FAQ even states.

"Given the high clock speeds of the underlying hardware the lack of real time support is not a major problem."

You have to write in C# as far as I can tell, other languages targeting the CLR are not supported. Download and debug is over serial ports not JTAG.

Accorind to this:

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It doesn't support JITing, it's not clear if it even executes CLR byte code, the link could be taken either way. It does appear to allow you to write native methods though.

You have to have Visual Studio 2005 to use it.

-p

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Reply to
Paul Gotch

384K (or 512K) ROM and 256K RAM is "very little in the way of system resources"?!? Compared to what?

They'll have to be small to be shoehorned into the machine after M$ has usurped all the resources.

Reply to
Everett M. Greene

They way I understand it, they have a new kind of IL that was designed to be interpreted. It reminds me of the DotGNU project: they translate IL into a new dialect of IL that is more friendly to interpretation, and they have a runtime interpreter to run that. The "full" IL for PC's lacks the kind of type information you'd need to execute it quickly with an interpreter (the JIT compiler gets the type info from various metadata). For example, the IL instruction to add 2 values doesn't specify the size of the operands (unlike Java's JVM bytecodes).

Yes, I'm guessing the free Express version won't work with it. I believe that is also the case for the CE platform. However, you probably only need VS for debugging, or for rich designtime functionality. Microsoft normally allows people to develop apps with Notepad, or third-party tools. It comes down to a question of deployment, and I am guessing that can also be done outside of VS since they are just using a serial port.

By the way, their serial port support in CE is quite good, so I expect the same here. It shouldn't have the slow klunky feeling that Arm's Angel monitor had when debugging over a serial port. It should be pretty responsive. If it's not responsive it will quickly die in the developer marketplace.

Eric

Reply to
Eric

This looks like a low cost dev board for the Micro Framework. This runs at 200 Mhz and has 2, USB host mode interfaces, and an Ethernet port. It can also run linux. It doesn't have an LCD, but this looks like a steal for the money.

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Freescale also has a dev kit, and it also has an LCD - is this the same as the one from Embedded Fusion? Note that the USB is only 1.1 and it's not a host interface. I don't know if they have a linux option, but Freescale is linux-friendly with some of their other boards. It runs only at 100 Mhz. Sadly, this does not use the new Cortex A8 that Freescale is supposed to be working on.

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Eric

Reply to
Eric

Those are Microsoft's press release words, so they will mean compared with Vista! ;)

-jg

Reply to
Jim Granville

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