P.H.P. and Python (and Tcl/Tk!)

[phiscock-g851W1bGYuGnS0EtXVNi6w at public.gmane.org]

>> language. We can now do screen updates on our oscilloscope hardware at a
>> rate that is indistinguishable from an analog scope.
>
> That should not be a surprise.
>
>      "1993 - Tectronix develops osciliscope line
                                  ^^^^^^^^^^^ oscilloscope
>      using OTI's embedded Smalltalk technology."
>
> (Link: http://www-03.ibm.com/software/ca/en/ottawalab/roots.html)
>
> I still have a 486DX2 from back then. With today's chips,
> it should be a breeze - but embedded hardware may be using
> low powered chips.

Very interesting. I would not have expected Smalltalk to be suitable for
an embedded application like this. I would guess that this was a scope
with an embedded processor and an integral display of some type (raster
scan CRT, perhaps? so one could use standard video control chips). That
makes the processor tightly coupled to the display and would remove the
USB serial link overhead that we have to contend with. On the other hand,
having a PC host makes the software accessible to the end user so that
he/she can add features.

Peter

--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://gtalug.org/
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://gtalug.org/wiki/Mailing_lists