>>>>> "DS" == Dan Sugalski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
DS> That's good. Though do either of them have 16-bit data busses?
>> DSPs are more messy.
DS> That's probably a bit too specialized a piece of hardware to worry
DS> about. Unlss things have changed lately, they're not really
DS> general-purpose CPUs.
some are fairly close to that. they are more like general cpu's with
specialized int/float multiply/add sections in some ways. i have seen
complex apps (with dsp built in) programmed on them. one did a modular
OS type thing for telephony (you could connect modules and things
together on the fly) which had as much general programming as dsp on the
same system. cell phones can use their dsp for both signal stuff and
control and UI.
so don't rule dsp's out just yet. they are closer to the common 32 bit
cpu than the microcontrollers in many ways.
>> It is micro-controllers that you have to worry about
DS> Yeak, I know a lot of the old 8 and 16 bit chips are in use as
DS> control devices places. Those are the ones I'm thinking
DS> about. (Not that hard, but I don't want to rule them out
DS> needlessly)
some of the 8 bitters would be imposible to code perl on as they have
fixed rom/ram of very small sizes, like under a few k. :) e.g. you don't
need much code/ram to run a microwave oven. and that is where the volume
really is and i doubt perl will ever want to penetrate that market. 16
bitters are not much different but some have decent memory sizes
depending on the model of the chip. many have fancy I/O subsystems on
board which would be painful for perl to handle. (that is another story,
how to make perl do i/o register access better). again i don't think
these are areas people are clamoring for perl to run on.
maybe some of us should go to an rtos/embedded show and ask around "how
often is perl requested?"
in network controllers (linksys type things) and other embedded stuff in
that world, perl has requested. i have seen support mentioned for
vxworks, psos and and maybe othe rtos systems. that is more of an OS
problem than a chip one. gcc is used on almost all those systems so perl
would compile ok i would guess.
now most of my info is about 3 years old (from when i was working on an
rtos system). some sort of market survey, reading the trades, asking a
few suppliers, etc. should be done before we expend any major amount of
energy working on these platforms. there is a perl embedded list. is it
active? are any of us on it? we can just email them to get some up to
date info. they aleady like perl. :)
uri
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