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I'm confused.. so Wi-Fi chips run OSes inside them now?
by mehrdadn 8y ago
I'm confused.. so Wi-Fi chips run OSes inside them now?
- enkid 8y agoYes, normally some sort of real time OS.
- hawski 8y agoRemember that your computer is really made of multiple computers that run bare-metal code or can have their own OSes. For example Intel CPUs have Minix running inside of them.
- mehrdadn 8y agoSome of these I knew (hard drive, LTE modem, etc.), but I didn't realize Wi-Fi was such an example.
- marcosdumay 8y agoWi-fi adapters are some of the most processing-heavy peripherals people have. After the memory controller, bus bridges, GPUs, and DMA controller, it's probably the largest one.
- mehrdadn 8y agoDoes processing-heavy imply it has an RTOS in it? (Do all the things you mentioned have RTOSes in them?)
- marcosdumay 8y agoIt means it has a large processor that can run an RTOS. It does not automatically mean it has an RTOS. I would be surprised if the faster bus and memory controllers had it (because of latency problems). I would expect something like it on a USB controller, GPU, network or disk interface. I really have no idea what to expect from a DMA controller.
- pjc50 8y ago>> After the memory controller, bus bridges, GPUs, and DMA controller, it's probably the largest one Probably best to distinguish between processing-heavy and throughput-heavy; apart from the GPU, all those are throughput-heavy but do very little to the data, and I think would not normally have a recognisable processor or an OS. There's the additional problem that they're required to boot, so nowhere convenient to load the OS from unless you scatter SPI flash across the board. GPUs on the other hand have a full task-switching operating system.
- emj 8y agoSD cards have been running RTOSs for some time.
- mehrdadn 8y agoThe cards themselves?! Or the readers?
- shabble 8y agoCards: https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?page_id=3592 https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?page_id=3592
- mehrdadn 8y agoWow. I wonder if my mental image of an RTOS on the devices is correct? I would've imagined there's some sort of firmware inside any device that communicates with a host, but when I hear RTOS I think of something fairly generic that would be deployed across a range of device types (like a Linux system but real time) rather than specialized firmware... is that accurate?
- dogma1138 8y agoEmbedded micro controllers are very common these days in a wide range of ICs most of them aren’t disclosed or accessible to their users their sole role is to abstract the physical IC and present what the customer expects this can be things like timers, flash memory or even microcontrollers themselves as well as more complex ICs that need to ensure some defined PHY like network or serial controllers.
- mehrdadn 8y agoThat's what I expected but it sounds like these are specifically not that?
- 8y ago
- ccnafr 8y agoA RTOS is not really an OS, just a super-fast way of dealing with I/O streams. More driver/firmware than OS, if you ask me. But some companies need fancy words for marketing, I guess.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- Kenji 8y agoA RTOS is most definitely a real OS. Look at QNX.
- cataflam 8y ago> not really an OS, just a super-fast way of dealing with I/O streams Saying this without any animosity, but you would probably be interested in reading about the history of operating systems. Desktop OSes are a (very visible) minority, and it's the opposite way in my opinion: a desktop OS is an OS + a large suite of tools + a shell. It's literally something that operates the system so that every program written doesn't have to handle all the low level IO, that enables task management, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_operating_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_operating_systems
- detaro 8y agoRTOS literally means "OS with real-time capabilities", you can't say in general that an RTOS is not really an OS. QNX is very clearly an OS. Linux with real-time modifications is clearly an OS. And even with really small variants, like ThreadX in this case, they have many markers of an OS: It provides threads, with scheduling, synchronization and memory isolation (if the hardware supports that). It has a networking stack and file system abstractions. What exactly is it missing that makes it clearly "not an OS"?
- acd 8y agoI Didnt know either, guess what is in those binary driver blobs.
- myself248 8y agohttps://twitter.com/whitequark/status/1038517363212206080 https://twitter.com/whitequark/status/1038517363212206080 > PCs are just several embedded devices in a trenchcoat