12 Dec
2022
12 Dec
'22
9:29 p.m.
On Mon, Dec 12, 2022 at 12:27 AM Andrew Warkentin <andreww591(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
And yet, for some reason, QNX has had almost no
influence on anything
Be careful with a statement like that. It's likely running in something
in your car. and very likely to be running in something in the last Boeing
or Airbus-based flight you took, and it was used when Amazon made the last
delivery to you. It has long been popular in process control/materials
handling/robotics/fly-by-wire systems.
When a small, very lightweight UNIX-style programming API needed to be
used, QNX was often a favorite.
I sometimes think QNX must have had a really good salesperson in the
'Rust-Belt.' I know I talked to several fans in companies doing that
work. I do know of a least one firm that still uses it. An inexpensive
x86 can be designed into a custom controller, and the only 'development' is
the customer interface to private HW. The development system is a PC or
Vmware on an engineer's desk.
After Blackberry bought the company, it's interesting that they seem to be
all that is left of BB. But they are still going strong: QNX Neutrino RTOS
<https://streaklinks.com/BUDwcGeMTFsTSXcFxQzjvNX5/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.qnx.com%2Fproducts%2Fintl%2Fneutrino_rtos%2F>
Funny, I loved Mach (still do), but it tried to be all things to all
people. The QNX guys did not. I also think it help in their success --
by the fact that the QNX folks concentrated on RT, while Mach tried to be
the replacement for all of BSD. They both have their place ... I'm
typing this on my macOS 13.0.1 (Ventura) M1 system, which is just the
current flavor of Mach. As Tru64 hacker, as well as one of the folks that
work on Intel Paragon, which was OSF/1, all three are Mach based.
I also did some work with QNX back in the day and, like Larry, was always
very impressed. At one time, I did some consulting in the Rust-Belt, and
the executive (*i.e.* -- Havard Business. School types) asked me if *"this QNX
thing their engineers were using -- after all it was not from Microsoft,
IBM or DEC, of course.''* [they had converted/were in the process of
converting from DEC PMAX-based controllers running Ultrix to PCs running
QNX]. My analysis at the time, for a bunch of ex-Fortran Mech E's, had
done extremely well. I told the execs then that this is good stuff; it's
going to save them buckets of money as it 'just works' (that was the core
SW in the automatic 'sorter' that at the time was being done under contract
for Amazon -- I know the CEO of that firm and they sold the same basic
system to UPS/FedEx/USPS -- they used to have a very cool movie taken
during the testing at FedEx with glasses full of champagne moving at 45
miles through the sorter without spilling -- the PMAX would never have been
able to do that).
Frankly, for anyone learning either about microkernels or RT, I would
certainly tell them to look at QNX. Neither topic are what we call
'research' projects as much these days, but both have extremely practical
applications.
ᐧ