Inmos Ltd and the Sunnyvale, Californian company Ready Systems Corp have signed a technical, marketing and commercial partnership, and the first fruits will be a version of Ready Systems VRTX32 for the current and the coming H1 generations of Inmos Transputers. The VRTX32 is the kernel of the the VRTX real-time operating system and it provides functions required to develop real-time microprocessor applications. It is claimed to be deterministic, providing fixed-time performance independent of system loading, and will enable applications written for other processors to be converted for a multi-Transputer environment to take advantage of the unique high-speed inter-Transputer links. VRTX32 provides task management, interprocess communication and synchronization, standard Unix and input-ouput support and the company claims that it has been bug-free since 1988 which is especially important in critical operations. The development is timed to coincide with the release of Inmos’ superscalar Transputer, the HI, and Inmos, a subsidiary of SGS-Thomson Microelectronics NV, says that a VRTX-based product will be available by the third quarter next year.
