Versatile Real-Time Executive

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Versatile Real-Time Executive (VRTX) is a real-time operating system nowadays developed and marketed by the company Mentor Graphics. VRTX is suitable for both traditional board-based embedded systems and SoC architectures.

The VRTX operating system began as a product of Hunter & Ready, a company founded by James Ready and Colin Hunter in 1980 which later became Ready Systems. This firm later merged with Microtec Research in 1993 and went public in 1994. This firm was then acquired by Mentor Graphics in 1995 and VRTX became a Mentor product.

VRTX comes in two flavors: VRTXmc (micro-controller) for small systems requiring minimal memory use and VRTXsa (scalable architecture) for full operating system features. Most companies developing software with VRTX use ARM, MIPS, PowerPC or other RISC microprocessors.

VRTX runs the Hubble Space Telescope.

Since the 1980s, VRTX has been a rival to the VxWorks operating system, a Wind River Systems Inc. product.