Doubts and solutions

But there is a cloud on the T-Engine horizon. iTRON, which was created to enable developers to modify the operating system to some extent, is now facing the problem of weak standardisation. As the middleware has been growing in size, it has become increasingly difficult to create a unified stable development environment.

Sakamura’s solution was to allow the T-Kernel to be partially altered to suit different applications, but only under what is called the T-Licence.

In the words of Shin Uchiuzo, chief engineer, OS Technology Centre, Yokogawa Digital Computer Corporation, “T-Engine, as hardware, is a reference board for embedded systems. Recently, the environment has been improved for users to use T-Engine and T-Kernel/SE (Standard Extension), and sample drivers have been disclosed.” Yokogawa is a Japanese company that specialises in the microcomputer-embedded domain, and develops and delivers the T-Engine Board for ubiquitous network computing systems; it also provides T-Engine solutions for embedded development.

So is there any drawback that T-Engines face in their operability? “Not really,” opines Uchiuzo. “To operate T-Kernel, a program called ‘T-Monitor’ is required. This is, to a large extent, dependent on the CPU and T-Engine board hardware. If some reference source codes are disclosed, it will become more user friendly.”

Another area of improvement is the middleware system. The T-Engine was originally aimed at increasing the distribution of the middleware system. But, today, there are different boards with CPUs launched by various vendors, and at the same time, the environment of the OS (T-Kernel) has been built up as well. So, Uchiuzo feels, “By improving the middleware system, the environment for developing systems will be enhanced over the future. As a result, users will be able to shorten lead times, and better quality middleware will be distributed. Then T-Engine has the potential to become the standard of the embedded system industry in the future.”

An encouraging development has been Microsoft’s response to the T-Engine Forum in 2004, when the software giant announced its support to the development platform based on Windows CE 5.0.

Today, the T-Engine is no longer purely in the Japanese domain. Many other countries support it, while technology companies are actively working towards expanding its applications.

A promising future

Inputs by Radhika Nallayam