Shopping for embedded OS + platform

Dec 17, 2005 4 Replies
R

I am designing a small device that will sit on a telephone line and 'split' telephony data and encoded audio, passing it over USB to a nearby PC.



My needs are:



- ~128-256K RAM I/O buffer



- USB interface, must supply power



- LED output



- Reset button



- Debugging interface, assume RS232



- Interface to telephony chips, believe this will be I2C, not sure yet ...



- Open source tool chain + OS, GNU is ideal



- Low hurdles to entry in terms of both cost and time. I am a windows software dude with minimal Linux experience and want to get up to speed in a hurry.



My "wants" are:



- Prefer being able to code in C/C++



- Prefer but perhaps do not require multithreaded OS



- Boot from ROM (could be FLASH instead)



- Cmd line shell for debugging



Do not need or desire:



- File system



- Heap



- UI except LEDs + reset button



- Ethernet or other net adapter



I am looking at embedded Linuces but the "super small" one seems to take 32 MB of RAM to boot, which is massive overkill for my purposes.



Is there a small-n-simple, low cost solution for this situation??



RDeW



riley dot dewiley at gmail dot com


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M

The only way to have a *very* small system is to DO NOT use a x86 architecture, please consider an ARM architecture instead.

Marco Cavallini Koan s.a.s. - Bergamo - ITALIA Embedded and Real-Time Software Engineering www.koansoftware.com | www.klinux.org
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4

IHMO you should go for a commericial OS with decent support.

Uhh, why not a JTAG debugger. Do you prefer printf-debugging ? Or what do you mean by cmd line shell for debugging ?

42Bastian Do not email to bastian42@yahoo.com, it's a spam-only account :-) Use @monlynx.de instead !
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C

I'd use an ARM architecture, and slap linux on it. You can then use kgdb (a kernel patch) to run gdb on your pc (running linux also) controlling and debugginbg the kernel on your target platform via RS232. As stated by others, however, JTAG would be nice also. The drawback is the cost of the ICE or ICD connected to the JTAG interface.

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B

I'll provide you some advice....hire an embedded guy!

You mean USB device, not USB host, right? (If the device is to forward data to a PC, then it is a USB device and the PC is a host)

These are standard on just about any chip you can get...

Why do you need an OS? Stop thinking like a windows programmer. Something so simple as this does not likely need an operating system.

Again, you probably don't need an OS at all!

Most of these chips have flash memory onboard these days. So you may not even need external RAM.

You don't need that.... :)

Go to

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, and google for more stuff related to embedded, and you might find an evaluation kit which already does enough of what you want. Good hunting!

ttyl,

--buddy

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