I agree with most of what Eric says. Right now there is not a single RTOS that is really worth using a typical 8051 microcontroller application. On the other hand, there is a lot we can learn from the techniques used by the boys with bigger toys to make our own designs more reliable, robust and re-usable. After all, that's what engineering is all about; picking the best ideas and building them into your own designs.

The one thing I disagree with Eric about is multi-tasking. Many microcontroller applications do involve doing several tasks at once. I have been involved in the development of many label printers. When printing these have to:

1. Read the spead of a dc motor and set a PWM output to keep its speed constant.

2. Read data, convert it to bit map data and send it to the print head.

3. Synchronise the firing of the print head to an opto interrupter and set the pulse width depending on the number of dots to be printed.

The thing is, many of these simple applications are built using a simple forground/background technique where interrupts switch tasks (that's how we did the label printers). It is OK for simple designs but as soon as things become a bit more complex and there is a need to pass information between tasks for example, people get into all sorts of trouble.

My view is there is a need to poach some of the techniques used in RTOSs and build them into a design framework for microcontroller applications. At present I am attempting to do just that and when it is ready it will appear as additions to my current 8052.com page.

Ian