User:Gaxis/Draft MQX RTOS Page

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MQX RTOS
Website	www.mqxrtos.com
Company/ developer	Precise Software Technologies Inc. / ARC International / Embedded Access Inc.
Source model	Yes
Latest stable release	2.5 / Feb. 2008
Marketing target	Industrial, Medical and Consumer
Available language(s)	C / ASM
Supported platforms	ColdFire, PowerPC, ARC, ARM, StrongARM, xScale
Kernel type	Microkernel
License	Proprietary
Working state	Current

MQX RTOS is a real-time operating system made and sold by ARC International of St. Albans, UK.

Like most real-time operating systems, MQX RTOS includes a multitasking kernel with pre-emptive scheduling and fast interrupt response, extensive inter-process communication and synchronization facilities, and a file system.

Major distinguishing features of VxWorks include efficient POSIX-compliant memory management, multiprocessor facilities, a shell for user interface, symbolic and source level debugging capabilities, and performance monitoring.

MQX RTOS is generally used in embedded systems. MQX development is done on a "host" machine running Unix or Windows, cross-compiling target software to run on various "target" CPU architectures.

MQX RTOS has been ported to a number of platforms and now runs on practically any modern CPU that is used in the embedded market. This includes ColdFire, PowerPC, ARC, ARM, StrongARM, xScale CPUs.

1 History
2 Notable products using VxWorks
3 Competitive operating systems
4 References
5 External links

[edit] History

MQX had it origins at Dy4 Systems Inc., a company based in Ottawa, Canada. A small team of software engineers at Dy4 consisting of Jeremy James, Mati Sauks and Craig Honegger started researching novel applications for embedded multiprocessors in 1984. This work led to the use of a real-time operating system in writing firmware for Dy4 single board computers. In 1989, Jeremy James and Mati Sauks commercialized the Harmony Real-time Operating System which was developed for portable multiprocessor real-time systems by the National Research Council Canada and created a company called Precise Software Technologies Inc. This effort led to the development of the Precise Real-Time Executive technology that was the basis of a product call MQX and and MQX+m, which were real-time executives for single processor and multiprocessor applications. The unique asynchronous message passing paradigm delivered by MQX when it was introduced in 1991 and the royalty-free licensing model were accepted immediately in the embedded real-time market. Since the introduction of MQX, which stands for Message Queue eXecutive, Precise continually added functionality to the MQX RTOS through it various iterations and versions. Precise Software Technologies Inc. was acquired by ARC International in March, 2000 and continued to develop, license and sell MQX on many new processor architectures including Freescale ColdFire, IBM®/Freescale PowerPC and ARM. The MQX RTOS has been used in thousands of embedded projects by over 1000 companies, who have shipped millions of products running MQX. Today companies such as ABB, Agilent, ATI Technologies, Bauch and Lomb, General Dynamics, Daewoo, Exabyte, General Electric, B.F. Goodrich, Liebert, Matrox, Mitel Networks, Philips, Porsche, QLogic, SICK, Sony, Tyco and Xerox use MQX in applications such as Industrial Control, Networking, Storage and Consumer Electronics.