Shopping on line can be easy, simple and save you lots of money. It can also take a lot of your time, frustrate you, and result in unwanted purchases. Now the same can be said for regular high street shopping, but with the vast opportunity presented by the Internet it will pay you to spend a few minutes reading this and understanding how to better optimize your Rmx shopping experience:
1. Compare - without doubt the biggest advantage that the Rmx offers shoppers today is the ability to compare thousands of Rmx at a time. This is a great thing, but not necessarily all the time! Too much can be daunting at times so take advantage of the great comparison sites and where possible let them do the hard work for you.
2. Research - if it has been said it will be on the internet. Ignorance is no longer a justifiable reason for buying the wrong thing. Take the time to research in detail everything that you could possible want to know about
3. Testimonials - don't know anybody that has bought a Rmx? Wrong! If the Rmx is good the internet will let you know. Use the Internet as a friend and get testimonials before you buy.
4. Questions - Got a question about Rmx then search the Forums, FAQ's, Blogs etc. Don't be afraid to ask .....
5. Reputation - Never heard of the company selling Rmx? Don't worry, no reason why you should know every company in the world, but you know someone that does! Use the internet to find out what people are saying about Rmx and build up a picture of their reputation for sales, returns, customer service, delivery etc.
6. Returns - still worried that even after all of the above your Rmx wont be what you want? Check out the returns policy. There is so much competition now that someone, somewhere is bound to offer the terms that you are comfortable with.
7. Feedback - happy with your Rmx then let people know, after all you are depending on others people input in your buying decision, so why not give a little back.
8. Security - check for the yellow padlock on the Rmx site before you buy, and the s after http:/ /i.e. https:// = a secure site
9. Contact - got a question about Rmx, or want to leave a comment then check out the sites contact page. Reputable companies have them and respond.
10. Payment - ready to pay for your Rmx, then use your credit card or PayPal! Be aware of companies that don't accept them, there may be genuine reasons but given the huge amount of choice you have when buying online there is no reason at all not to buy via credit card or PayPal.
This article is about the iRMX Operating System; for the application, see RM-X General Purpose Control; for the mail protocol, see Reverse MX.
iRMX is a real-time operating system designed specifically for use with the Intel 8080 and
Intel 8086 family of processors. It is an acronym for
Real-time Multitasking eXecutive. Intel developed iRMX in the late 1970s and originally released it in 1980 to support and create demand for their processors and Multibus system platforms.
Effective
2000 iRMX is supported, maintained, and licensed worldwide by TenAsys Corporation, under an exclusive licensing arrangement with Intel.
iRMX is a layered design: containing a kernel, nucleus, basic i/o system, extended i/o system and human interface. An installation need include only the components required: intertask synchronization, communication subsystems, a filesystem, extended memory management, command shell, etc. The native filesystem is specific to iRMX, but has many similarities to the original
Unix (V6) filesystem, such as 14 character path name components, file nodes, sector lists, application readable directories, etc.
iRMX supports multiple processes (known as tasks in RMX parlance) and multiple threads are supported within each process (task). In addition, interrupt handlers and threads exist to run in response to hardware interrupts. Thus, iRMX is a computer multitasking,
multithreading, pre-emptive, real-time operating system (RTOS).
iRMX Variants
Several variations of iRMX have been developed since its original introduction on the
Intel 8080: iRMX I, II and III, iRMX-86, iRMX-286, DOS-RMX, iRMX for Windows, and, most recently, INtime. While many of the original variants of iRMX are still in use, only iRMX III, iRMX for Windows, and INtime are currently supported for the development of new real-time applications. Each of these three supported variants of iRMX require an
Intel 80386 equivalent or higher processor to run.
A significant architectural difference between the
INtime RTOS and all other iRMX variants is the support for address segments (see memory segments). The original Intel 8086 family of processors relied heavily on segment registers to overcome limitations associated with addressing
large amounts of memory via 16-bit registers. The iRMX operating system and the compilers developed for iRMX include features to exploit the segmented addressing features of the original
x86 architecture. The INtime variant of iRMX does not include explicit support for segmentation, opting instead to support only the simpler and more common 32-bit flat addressing scheme.
Note: despite the fact that native processes written for INtime can only operate using unsegmented flat-mode addressing, it is possible to port and run some older iRMX applications that use segmented addressing to the INtime kernel.
When Intel introduced the Intel 80386 processor, in addition to expanding the iRMX RTOS to support 32-bit registers, iRMX III also included support for the four distinct protection rings (named rings 0 through 3) which
describe the protected-mode mechanism of the Intel 32-bit architecture. In practice very few systems have ever used more than rings 0 and 3 to implement protection schemes.
iRMX
The I, II, III, -286 and -86 variants are intended as standalone real-time operating systems. A number of development utilities and applications were made for iRMX, such as compilers (PL/M,
Fortran, C (programming language)), an editor
TX, process and data acquisition applications and so on. Cross compilers hosted on the VAX/VMS system were also made available by Intel. iRMX III is still supported today and has been used as the core technology for newer real-time virtualization RTOS products including iRMX for Windows and
INtime.
DOS-RMX
DOS-RMX is a variant of the standalone iRMX operating system designed to allow two operating systems to share a single hardware platform. In simplest terms,
MS-DOS and iRMX operate concurrently on a single IBM PC compatible computer, where iRMX tasks (processes) have scheduling priority over the DOS kernel, interrupts, and applications. iRMX events (e.g., hardware interrupts) pre-empt the DOS kernel to insure that tasks can respond to real-time events in a time-deterministic manner. In a functional sense, DOS-RMX is the predecessor to iRMX for Windows and INtime.
In practice, DOS-RMX appears as a Terminate and Stay Resident to the
MS-DOS kernel. Once loaded as a TSR, iRMX takes over the CPU, changing to protected mode and running DOS in a virtual machine within an RMX task. This combination provides RMX real-time functionality as well as full MS-DOS services.
iRMX for Windows
Like DOS-RMX, this system provides a hybrid mixture of services and capabilities defined by
MS-DOS, Microsoft Windows, and iRMX. Inter-application communication via an enhanced Windows Dynamic Data Exchange capability allows RMX tasks to communicate with Windows processes.
iRMX for Windows was originally intended for use in combination with the 16-bit version of
Microsoft Windows. In 2002 iRMX for Windows was reintroduced by adding these RMX personalities to the
INtime RTOS for Windows, allowing it to be used in conjunction with the 32-bit protected-mode versions of Windows (Windows NT, Windows 2000, etc.).
INtime
Like its iRMX predecessors,
INtime is a real-time operating system. And, like DOS-RMX and iRMX for Windows, it runs conncurrently with a general-purpose operating system on a single hardware platform. INtime 1.0 was originally introduced in 1997 in conjunction with the
Windows NT operating system. Since then it has been upgraded to include support for all subsequent protected-mode Microsoft Windows platforms, including Windows Vista.
Like iRMX, INtime can also be used as a stand-alone RTOS.
INtime binaries are able to run unchanged when running on a
stand-alone node of the INtime RTOS. Unlike Windows, INtime can run on an
Intel 80386 or equivalent processor. Current versions of the Windows operating system generally require at least a Pentium level processor to boot and execute.
The introduction of INtime 3.0 included several important enhancements. Among them, support for multi-core processors and the ability to debug real-time processes on the INtime kernel using Microsoft Visual Studio.
INtime is not an
Symmetric multiprocessing operating system, thus support for multi-core processors is restricted to a special form of
asymmetric multiprocessing. When used on a multi-core processor INtime can be configured to run on one CPU core while Windows runs on the remaining processor core(s).
Uses
Use cases and success stories can be viewed on the TenAsys website.
External links
- iRMX information page
- iRMX for Windows information page
- INtime information page
This article is about the iRMX Operating System; for the application, see RM-X General Purpose Control; for the mail protocol, see Reverse MX.
iRMX is a
real-time operating system designed specifically for use with the
Intel 8080 and Intel 8086 family of processors. It is an acronym for
Real-time Multitasking eXecutive.
Intel developed iRMX in the late 1970s and originally released it in 1980 to support and create demand for their processors and Multibus system platforms.
Effective
2000 iRMX is supported, maintained, and licensed worldwide by TenAsys Corporation, under an exclusive licensing arrangement with
Intel.
iRMX is a layered design: containing a kernel, nucleus, basic i/o system, extended i/o system and human interface. An installation need include only the components required: intertask synchronization, communication subsystems, a filesystem, extended memory management, command shell, etc. The native filesystem is specific to iRMX, but has many similarities to the original
Unix (V6) filesystem, such as 14 character path name components, file nodes, sector lists, application readable directories, etc.
iRMX supports multiple processes (known as tasks in RMX parlance) and multiple threads are supported within each process (task). In addition, interrupt handlers and threads exist to run in response to hardware interrupts. Thus, iRMX is a
computer multitasking, multithreading, pre-emptive, real-time operating system (RTOS).
iRMX Variants
Several variations of iRMX have been developed since its original introduction on the Intel 8080: iRMX I, II and III, iRMX-86, iRMX-286, DOS-RMX, iRMX for Windows, and, most recently, INtime. While many of the original variants of iRMX are still in use, only iRMX III, iRMX for Windows, and INtime are currently supported for the development of new real-time applications. Each of these three supported variants of iRMX require an
Intel 80386 equivalent or higher processor to run.
A significant architectural difference between the INtime RTOS and all other iRMX variants is the support for address segments (see memory segments). The original
Intel 8086 family of processors relied heavily on segment registers to overcome limitations associated with addressing
large amounts of memory via 16-bit registers. The iRMX operating system and the compilers developed for iRMX include features to exploit the segmented addressing features of the original x86 architecture. The INtime variant of iRMX does not include explicit support for segmentation, opting instead to support only the simpler and more common 32-bit flat addressing scheme.
Note: despite the fact that native processes written for INtime can only operate using unsegmented flat-mode addressing, it is possible to port and run some older iRMX applications that use segmented addressing to the INtime kernel.
When Intel introduced the Intel 80386 processor, in addition to expanding the iRMX RTOS to support 32-bit registers, iRMX III also included support for the four distinct protection rings (named rings 0 through 3) which
describe the protected-mode mechanism of the Intel 32-bit architecture. In practice very few systems have ever used more than rings 0 and 3 to implement protection schemes.
iRMX
The I, II, III, -286 and -86 variants are intended as standalone real-time operating systems. A number of development utilities and applications were made for iRMX, such as compilers (
PL/M, Fortran, C (programming language)), an editor TX, process and data acquisition applications and so on. Cross compilers hosted on the
VAX/VMS system were also made available by Intel. iRMX III is still supported today and has been used as the core technology for newer real-time virtualization RTOS products including iRMX for Windows and
INtime.
DOS-RMX
DOS-RMX is a variant of the standalone iRMX operating system designed to allow two operating systems to share a single hardware platform. In simplest terms, MS-DOS and iRMX operate concurrently on a single
IBM PC compatible computer, where iRMX tasks (processes) have scheduling priority over the DOS kernel, interrupts, and applications. iRMX events (e.g., hardware interrupts) pre-empt the DOS kernel to insure that tasks can respond to real-time events in a time-deterministic manner. In a functional sense, DOS-RMX is the predecessor to iRMX for Windows and
INtime.
In practice, DOS-RMX appears as a
Terminate and Stay Resident to the MS-DOS kernel. Once loaded as a TSR, iRMX takes over the CPU, changing to
protected mode and running DOS in a virtual machine within an RMX task. This combination provides RMX real-time functionality as well as full MS-DOS services.
iRMX for Windows
Like DOS-RMX, this system provides a hybrid mixture of services and capabilities defined by
MS-DOS, Microsoft Windows, and iRMX. Inter-application communication via an enhanced Windows Dynamic Data Exchange capability allows RMX tasks to communicate with Windows processes.
iRMX for Windows was originally intended for use in combination with the 16-bit version of Microsoft Windows. In 2002 iRMX for Windows was reintroduced by adding these RMX personalities to the
INtime RTOS for Windows, allowing it to be used in conjunction with the 32-bit protected-mode versions of Windows (Windows NT, Windows 2000, etc.).
INtime
Like its iRMX predecessors,
INtime is a real-time operating system. And, like DOS-RMX and iRMX for Windows, it runs conncurrently with a general-purpose operating system on a single hardware platform. INtime 1.0 was originally introduced in 1997 in conjunction with the
Windows NT operating system. Since then it has been upgraded to include support for all subsequent protected-mode
Microsoft Windows platforms, including Windows Vista.
Like iRMX, INtime can also be used as a stand-alone RTOS.
INtime binaries are able to run unchanged when running on a
stand-alone node of the INtime RTOS. Unlike Windows, INtime can run on an
Intel 80386 or equivalent processor. Current versions of the Windows operating system generally require at least a
Pentium level processor to boot and execute.
The introduction of INtime 3.0 included several important enhancements. Among them, support for multi-core processors and the ability to debug real-time processes on the INtime kernel using Microsoft
Visual Studio.
INtime is not an Symmetric multiprocessing operating system, thus support for multi-core processors is restricted to a special form of asymmetric multiprocessing. When used on a multi-core processor INtime can be configured to run on one CPU core while Windows runs on the remaining processor core(s).
Uses
Use cases and success stories can be viewed on the TenAsys website.
External links
- iRMX information page
- iRMX for Windows information page
- INtime information page