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DSDP/RTSC
Real-Time Software Components (RTSC)
Welcome to the DSDP Real-Time Software Components (RTSC) Project Wiki. The RTSC project provides foundational tools and low-level runtime content to enable component-based development using the C language targeting all embedded platforms. While other component technologies exist for embedded systems, RTSC is unique in that it scales down to highly resource constrained embedded systems including DSPs and 16-bit micro-controllers.
News & Events
- 7/31/09: TI added a registration free download of XDCtools: here. This release is now 100% free of any TI proprietary licensing. Although this distribution contains some GPL components for completeness, all RTSC content is provided under EPL.
- 5/01/09: The EclipseCon 2009 RTSC tutorial sources are available from the RTSC repository: see [1]. The slides are also available from [2].
- 3/19/09: We'll be giving 4 hour RTSC tutorial on the morning of 3/23/09 at EclipseCon 2009 -- not only introducing the concepts of RTSC (largely drawn from material already found in the RTSC-Pedia), but also demonstrating "RTSC In Action" through a live wireless sensor application running on a pair of MSP430s. We'll be supplying the MSP430 hardware, an ez430-rf2500 development kit, which when combined with the tutorial's example code allows participants to build and run the sensor application. We'll have enough hardware for up to 10 participants.
- 10/16/08: We've just published the yellow-light version of the (long-awaited) Packaging Primer at [3].
- 9/30/08: A short talk at ESE2008 has been accepted
- 8/08/08: As a first step to moving XDCtools to open source, the previously TI internal RTSC documentation wiki (RTSC-Pedia) is now open to the community at http://rtsc.eclipse.org/docs.
- 7/03/08: RTSC has been provisioned with a web site (http://www.eclipse.org/dsdp/rtsc/) and bugzilla product category
- 4/10/08: RTSC passed its Creation Review and is now in the incubation phase
- 4/04/08: A new RTSC Interface Primer is now available as well as updates to existing documents
- 2/16/08: The RTSC project is now in the proposal phase (see the RTSC Proposal) and we encourage questions and comments on the RTSC news group
- EclipseCon 2008 Talks
- Introducing Real-Time Software Components (RTSC) - A brief overview of scope and intent of the RTSC project
- Overview of Real-Time Software Components: A Scalable Component Model for Embedded C Development - An overview of the technical contributions of the RTSC Component Model.
Background
Although the RTSC project is currently in the incubation stage, the RTSC tools and component model (XDCtools) have enjoyed continuous development since 2000 by a small group of senior embedded software developers at Texas Instruments (in Santa Barbara). Since 2004, the DSP/BIOS 5.x RTOS – created using the XDCtools – has shipped along with these tools to ensure that any development system that included DSP/BIOS could consume components (called packages) created by other development groups. Today, internal groups within Texas Instruments regularly (re)build, test, and deploy hundreds of RTSC packages. Many of these packages are used worldwide by thousands of developers both inside and outside Texas Instruments. For example,
- DSP/BIOS 5.x – is deployed as a bundle of more than 56 packages,
- Codec Engine multi-media middleware runtime is an independently deployed bundle of more than 21 packages,
- a wide variety of video, imaging, speech, and audio codecs – developed by both Texas Instruments and its third parties – are delivered as a packages, and
- XDCtools itself is delivered as a bundle of over 125 packages.
The fact that developers have been using DSP/BIOS 5.x without realizing that it is, in fact, a collection of RTSC components illustrates one of the strengths of the RTSC model: consumers of RTSC components can easily integrate them without converting their entire application into components.
The starting point for the RTSC project will include the XDCtools currently available from Texas Instruments as a free download (may require a free registration). By making these tools freely and openly available, we hope to foster deeper levels of integration with the Eclipse platform, encourage adoption of RTSC by eliminating the understandable fears of proprietary ties to Texas Instruments, and bring modern component-based development tools to the embedded C programmer.
On-Going Discussions
- Ease of Use - How to improve RTSC ease of use
- xdc.runtime.knl - Extending xdc.runtime to abstract basic threading services and allow more components to be independent of underlying hardware and OS.
- device peripherals - proposal to add peripherals to the platform model
- DSDP/RTSC - XDCtools from TI - product release plans for TI distributions of XDCtools
- DSDP/RTSC - Performance - How to speed up XDCtools builds
- Problems migrating to Eclipse 3.6
Documents
The zipped HTML files in the table below are designed to be unzipped next to one another in a common directory; this preserves cross document links.
Document | Description |
---|---|
RTSC-Pedia | Wiki containing all RTSC documentation: tutorial primers, user's guides, FAQs, etc. |
EclipseCon 2009 Presentations | Getting started with RTSC component development, and Real-time monitoring of RTSC modules |
RTSC tutorial slides | Slides presented at the EclipseCon 2009 RTSC tutorial |
EclipseSummit 2008 | Introducing Real-Time Software Components (RTSC) for Embedded C/C++ within Eclipse |
EclipseCon 2008 Presentations | Introducing Real-Time Software Components (RTSC), and Overview of Real-Time Software Components: A Scalable Component Model for Embedded C Development |
RTSC Project Proposal | Official Eclipse RTSC Project Proposal |