R&D reports Proc. E, CompuL Digital Techniques Vol 134 No 6 (November 1987) pp 288-294 A deterministic model for a multiprocessor system with multiple shared buses, for use in realtime control applications, is developed and analysed. Two schemes are proposed for scheduling data transmission on a multiple-bus system to minimize the corresponding cycle times. Exact, approximate and heuristic algorithms are developed to solve the scheduling problems.
Mokhoff, N 'VMEbus data-flow system does real-time work at 265 MIPS' Electron. Des. Vol 35 No 30 (23 December 1987) pp 1'9-24 Describes the PC/M HyperFIo system that allows up to 100 processors to be tied together on VME boards for demanding realtime applications. Use of standard VME components means that such systems are smaller and more cost effective than other similar multiprocessing machines.
Networking Gulick, D and Crowe, C 'Interface the ISDN to your PC with a voice/data board' Electron. Des. Vol 35 No 29 (10 December 1987) pp 85-89
Leibson, S H 'Integrated Services Digital Network' EDN Vol 32 No 23 (12 November 1987) pp 119-128 Report on the status of ISDN, the CCITT international standard for digital telecommunications.
Taylor, C B 'The X/OPEN Group and the Common Applications Environment' ICL Tech. J. Vol 5 No 4 (November 1987) pp 665-679 Discusses the present status of the X/Open group of manufacturers committed to 'open systems' through a common applications environment based on Unix system V and c.
The needs of extended database applications, where one or more databases contain information to be shared among a set of separate modules interacting through the databases, will cause the ascendance of a new generation of operating systems to supplant current schemes based on phase sequencing and pipelining, saysthe author. A working prototype of such a system, using intermodule composition mechanisms, has been developed at the University of Southern California, USA. Experiences in developing and using this prototype are described.
Schmitt, D A 'The flexible interface' pp 110-128
Armbrust, S 'Porting to OS/2' pp 140-170
Semiconductor technology Cormier, D 'Mastering the BiCMOS mix' ESD Vol 17 No 11 (November 1987) pp 47-55 Review of RAM devices fabricated in combined bipolar and CMOS technology.
Cortesi, D E 'Dynamic linking in OS/2' Dr Dobb's J. Software Tools Vol 12 No 12 (December 1987) pp 18-28 IBM and Microsoft's second-generation personal computer operating system OS/2 has been designed so that thirdparty developers can easily add further functions to it. The article surveys the mechanisms that allow this, particularly dynamic linking. A dynamic link is essentially an external reference that is not resolved at the time a program is linked.
Vernon, V 'Inside OS/2' Comput. Language Vol 4 No 12 (December 1987) pp 47-55 The system services provided by OS/2 are introduced. The paper covers the OS/2 software development kit, process creation and execution, memory management, device services, file management, interprocess communication and miscellaneous services.
Wilson, R 'RISC processor enters the race of realtime computing' Comput. Des. Vol 26 No 22 (December 1987) pp 23-24 Discusses the porting of Ready Systems' VRTX32 realtime operating system to AMD's Am29000 32-bit RISC (reduced instruction set computer) microprocessor.
Nakano, M-O 'Three-dimensional ICs at Fujitsu' Fujitsu ScL Tech. J. Vol 23 No 2 (Summer 1987) pp 71-86 Using conventional semiconductor technology it is difficult to extend integration levels beyond those permitted by 0.25 pm feature widths. This limitation can be overcome using 'threedimensional integration', whereby multiple layers of silicon are used for active devices. 3D integration is difficult to implement because it requires single crystalline layers of silicon on insulators (SOl), but various methods of doing this have been proposed. The paper reviews Fujitsu's work in the area.
Software debugging Small, C H 'Debuggers help you perfect high-level and realtime code' EDN Vo132 No 25 (10 December 1987) pp 153-164 Assembly language debuggers are not suitable for use with high-level languages and formal realtime operating systems, so vendors are now providing high-level language debuggers offering such features as break points, program trace, and memory manipulation commands that accept high-level language constructs as arguments. Examples of such debuggers are reviewed.
Special issue on 0 5 / 2 PC Tech. J. Vol 5 No 11 (November 1987)
Mirecki, E Operating systems
'Enter OS/2' pp 52-63
Balzer, R M
'An architecture for the future' pp 66-83
'Living in the next-generation operating system' IEEE Software Vol 4 No 6 (November 1987) pp 77-85
Batalov, B V, Nemudrov, V G, Sheplev, V A and Kornilov, A I
Armbrust, S and Forgeron, E
'Principal problems in the development of CAD systems for VLSI circuits for
VLSI design and text
Heller, M
Vol 72 No 2 March 1988
'Multiple tasks' pp 90-106
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