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OpenPICUS is PIC 24F series (16 bit) based new open hardware platform with embedded wireless module (Bluetooth and Wi-Fi). The project will let developers (hardware and software) create their advanced wireless sensor applications even without any hardware experience. At this time, the project is under development. If you have great idea and want to contribute to the project, you will have a chance to get OpenPICUS evaluation board for FREE.

Here is main characteristics of OpenPICUS:
HARDWARE

* CPU Microchip PIC 24F 16 bit 44 pins QFN 64K Flash 8K Ram)
* Wireless (Bluetooth / Wi-Fi)
* Power 5V or 3,3V
* Main connections: UART, Digital Inputs, Digital Outputs, Analog Inputs, PWMs, SPI display, I2C
* Connector: 26 Ways IDC header (male) suitable for TH mounting or flat cable
* SMT: 26 Pins for direct soldering PICUS to a PCB

Software

* PICUS gives a possibility to upload software by a serial port (you do not need a Microchip programmer).
* Bluetooth offers SPP, OBEX, Headset profiles.
* Wi-Fi gives an access to the integrated webserver, TCP socket, embedded FTP and email clients.

You can follow the project development at http://openpicus.blogspot.com/

Surce:
http://www.circuitlake.com/openpicus-pic-based-wireless-platform-project.html

SkyEye is an Open Source Software Project (GPL Licence). Origin from GDB/Armulator, The goal of SkyEye is to provide an integrated simulation environment in Linux and Windows. SkyEye environment simulates/emulates typical Embedded Computer Systems (Now it supports a series ARM, MIPS, PowerPC, Blackfin, Coldfire, and SPARC architecture based microprocessors). You can run some Embedded Operation System such as Embedded Linux, uClinux, uc/OS-II (ucos-ii) etc. in SkyEye, and analysis or debug them at source level.

Source:
http://www.skyeye.org

The Nano-X Window System is an Open Source project aimed at bringing the features of modern graphical windowing environments to smaller devices and platforms. Nano-X allows applications to be built and tested on the Linux desktop, as well as cross-compiled for the target device. The Nano-X Window System was previously named Microwindows, but has been renamed due to conflicts with Microsoft’s Windows trademark. There are two APIs implemented in the system, a Win32 API and an Xlib-like API.

Source:
http://www.microwindows.org

The aim of this project is to port and maintain RTEMS to the OpenRISC 1000 family and develop device drivers for various OpenCores peripherals.

RTEMS is a real-time open source operating system.

Features are:

* free, open source code with no royalty
* small code footprint suitable for embedded and portable applications
* POSIX API and uITRON API
* Scalable Architecture
* Multitasking
* Event-driven, priority-based, preemptive scheduling
* Intertask communication and synchronization
* High level of user configurability
* TCP/IP networking with FTP, HTTP and other Internet daemons
* File system, microwindows GUI, etc.

Source:
http://opencores.org/openrisc,rtems

RTEMS is a real-time executive which provides a high performance environment for embedded applications on a range processors and embedded hardware. This page is the kick-off for information on RTEMS, real-time and embedded programming.

Processor architectures:

* ARM
* Atmel AVR
* Blackfin
* Freescale ColdFire
* Texas Instruments C3x/C4x DSPs
* H8/300
* Intel 80386, Pentium, and above members of the x86 architecture
* Lattice Mico32
* 68k
* Renesas M32C
* Renesas M32R
* MIPS
* Nios II
* PowerPC
* Renesas SuperH
* SPARC

Source:
http://www.rtems.com
http://www.rtems.org/wiki

Xenomai is a real-time development framework cooperating with the Linux kernel, in order to provide a pervasive, interface-agnostic, hard real-time support to user-space applications, seamlessly integrated into the GNU/Linux environment.

Embedded Device Support:
* ARM
* Blackfin
* Nios II
* PowerPC
* x86
* ia64

Source:
http://www.xenomai.org

RTAI – the RealTime Application Interface for Linux – which lets you write applications with strict timing constraints for your favourite operating system. Like Linux itself this software is a community effort. If you are interested in what it does just join our mailing list and help our team!

RTAI supports several architectures:

* x86 (with and without FPU and TSC)
* x86_64
* PowerPC
* ARM (StrongARM; ARM7: clps711x-family, Cirrus Logic EP7xxx, CS89712, PXA25x)
* m68k (supporting both MMU and NOMMU cpus)

The RTAI distribution includes RTAI-Lab, a tool chain to convert block diagrams into RTAI executables and to monitor their operation on various targets.

Source:
http://www.rtai.org

FreeRTOS is a portable, open source, royalty free, mini Real Time Kernel – a free to download and free to deploy RTOS that can be used in commercial applications without any requirement to expose your proprietary source code.

FreeRTOS Features:

* Free RTOS kernel – preemptive, cooperative and hybrid configuration options.
* The SafeRTOS derivative product provides a high level of confidence in the code integrity.
* Official support for 23 architectures (counting ARM7 and ARM Cortex M3 as one architecture each).
* FreeRTOS-MPU supports the Cortex M3 Memory Protection Unit (MPU).
* Designed to be small, simple and easy to use. Typically a kernel binary image will be in the region of 4K to 9K bytes.
* Very portable code structure predominantly written in C.
* Supports both tasks and co-routines.
* Powerful execution trace functionality.
* Stack overflow detection options.
* No software restriction on the number of tasks that can be created.
* No software restriction on the number of priorities that can be used.
* No restrictions imposed on priority assignment – more than one task can be assigned the same priority.
* Queues, binary semaphores, counting semaphores, recursive semaphores and mutexes for communication and synchronisation between tasks, or between tasks and interrupts.
* Mutexes with priority inheritance.
* Free development tools (Cortex-M3, ARM7, MSP430, H8/S, AMD, AVR, x86 and 8051 ports).
* Free embedded software source code.
* Royalty free.
* Cross development from a standard Windows host.
* Pre-configured demo applications for selected single board computers allowing ‘out of the box’ operation and fast learning curve.

Source:
http://www.freertos.org