Windows CE books

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Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow!  My LESLIE GORE record
                                  at               is BROKEN...
                               visi.com

;))))))

record

Although entirely correct, this answer does not help me - the choice of OS was made at the upper level, so I have to dig into it... Thanks anyway !

- Dejan

Sorry about that -- I couldn't resist.

I've never actually used WinCE, though I did evaluate it as an option for a project once several years ago.

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Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow!  Do I have a lifestyle
                                  at               yet?
                               visi.com

Grant Edwards scrobe on the papyrus:

or this

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John B

Some microsoft application notes ?

Rene

I hope lurkers are learning something from the fact that if you ask, in a group of engineers, where to find good references on Windows CE programming, the ONLY non-facetious answers are Microsoft documents.

Contrast almost any real embedded operating system, which has real people using it...

I would agree with you if you can give some real arguments against WinCE. In hist post Grant Edwards admits that he never used it, still has a strong feelings against it. I am not advocating in WinCE favor, I would only prefer some fact-based opinion. In the past I have designed many embedded systems - some with OS, some without - and I can see some benefits of using WinCE when there's a need for a nice GUI and support for various I/O like USB, TCP/IP etc. If all those, let me say so, advanced features are not needed, then it's a good question is WinCE optimal solution. I think people are often judging WinCE based on their PC Windows experience, which is not correct. Just my 0.02$ ...

- Dejan

I doubt if Grant has tried heroin, but I'm sure he has strong feelings against that too.

Grant did say that he evaluated it for a project, meaning he has looked into it and decided against it, so it's an informed opinion.

My opinions on WinCE are based on what I've read and heard, and I've talked to a few people who have used it. It has the benefit of having a familiar gui if your device is supposed to look like a tiny windows machine, but that's about all. There are a great many embedded operating systems available - WinCE does not attract particularly, and even assuming it works perfectly, it's supplier is not a company renowned for its cooperation.

Just for a laugh (I know it is not directly relevant):

I did spend some time researching it though. The specs (task switch time, memory footprint, interrupt latency) were awful -- all a factor of 10X larger than even the worst of the competition. I talked to and corresponded with several people who had recently done projets using WinCE. They all told absolute horror stories about flakey drivers, no tech support, toolchain problems, no access to source code, etc.

From what information I could gather, WinCE is far worse than desktop PC Windows.

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Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow!  INSIDE, I have the
                                  at               same personality disorder
                               visi.com            as LUCY RICARDO!!

...

Considering how quickly things change with them I would not fancy using it on anything but throwaway commodity items where only ONE version of the code is ever released as that product is sold for 6 months, then superceded.

10 year support cycle on that would be impossible as any fix would no doubt mean loading more software and newer drivers, that require more memory or CPU power, so a board respin.

Having been to presentations about it and given demos of TWO versions a few years ago. So no doubt with .net and every other new name thing every n months, version control will become a nightmare.

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Paul Carpenter          | paul@pcserviceselectronics.co.uk
    PC Services
              GNU H8 & mailing list info
             For those web sites you hate

One thing that I remember users complaining about was that you never realize much of the supposed benefit of being able to re-use source code written for "desktop" windows apps. The WinCE API is a partially incompatible subset of the normal Win32 API, so you end up having to change a lot of application code to get it to work under WinCE.

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Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow!  Are you guys lined up
                                  at               for the METHADONE PROGRAM
                               visi.com            or FOOD STAMPS??

I think you are probably right Dejan--but I think the phrase 'past performance history is no indicator of future performance' applies only to financial world. I think it's perfectly logical to conclude that if I have nightmares headaches with product X from company Y, there is a good basis for rejecting product Z from company Y also...

Granted any/every company has their ups and downs--but *consistently* poor support is the nail in the coffin as far as Microsoft for embedded world in my humble opinion. And this ignores the monopoly/political concerns. A major factor in my move to the embedded world was to avoid Microsoft. Why on earth I would go back to that _given-a-choice_ is beyond me? The fact I have little choice on PCs is bad enough. I would be hard-pressed to personally contribute to the demise of traditional, embedded, companies--like Keil, VxWorks--that understand how important support and a non-bloated product is.... something it seems Microsoft will never grasp.

Just my $0.02. Back to your regularly scheduled programming....

Bo

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Regards
Ole Asbjorn Fadum
Scanmar AS