Richard Engebretson wrote:
> Even
> embedded systems now use 80486 and above. So the term "embedded" is
> misleading. Any of the leading Pascal compilers will work on a 486. The
> bottom line is that the term "embedded" is not specific, and Pascal
> requires specifics. The PC was a child of the mainframe, embedded a
> child of the PC, and children grow up.
>
> What you need to avoid is getting tangled up with the OS. Things like
> DOS interrupts. Both FreePascal and GnuPascal compilers will produce
> assembler text in your choice of syntax.
>
> When you write about pascal, please appreciate the high level
> constructs it offers.
You're right that the term "embedded" is not specific enough. What I
meant was real-time embedded, i.e. where a microcontroller is embedded
in a product where the presence of that microcontroller is not a
requirement of the product. By that I mean it's not a "computer" in the
wide sense of the word - smart-phone, PDA, etc, markets which are
hijacking the term "embedded". The code was actually taken from an
electricity meter using an 8-bit Renesas H8/3827.
In this real-time embedded market, 8 bit microcontrollers still rule
the roost (in terms of numbers ****pped anyway). 486s are almost unheard
of. This is because cost is everything, so the cheapest possible micro
that is just capable of doing the job is used. In this respect,
embedded is not a "child of the PC" at all, rather a child of all those
8 bit home computers we all played with in the '80s!
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