ITRON, the first in a series of open-source specifications for the TRON architecture, answered a pressing need for Japan’s electronics firms, which traditionally have written their own software for embedded systems. Read the article at LinuxInsider.
The Most Popular Operating System in the World
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The title should really be “The most used operating system in the world”, not the most popular.
The article says that Japanese officials torpedoed (in 1989) a PC based on TRON to please the US government. Apparently, these same pathetic public servants found it quite normal to spend billions (during the last 20 years) on hardware and operating systems developed by foreign researchers.
would it not be the most popular if it is the most used?
pop·u·lar ( P ) Pronunciation Key (ppy-lr) adj.
1. Widely liked or appreciated: a popular resort.
2. Liked by acquaintances; sought after for company: “Beware of over-great pleasure in being popular or even beloved” (Margaret Fuller).
3. Of, representing, or carried on by the people at large: the popular vote.
4. Fit for, adapted to, or reflecting the taste of the people at large: popular entertainment; popular science.
5. Accepted by or prevalent among the people in general: a popular misunderstanding of the issue.
6. Suited to or within the means of ordinary people: popular prices.
7. Originating among the people: popular legend.
That is the definition of the word popular, just so we can stop the debate over the use of that word, before it begins (or just add fuel to the fire).
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=popular
Agree with Zenja.
making a claim like this:
What is the world’s most widely used operating system? It’s not Windows, Unix or Linux , but ITRON, a Japanese real-time kernel for small-scale embedded systems. ITRON runs on mobile phones , digital cameras, CD players and countless other electronic devices.
…and providing no numbers for the installed base.
*sigh*
I suppose we’re left to guess how many ITRON-based devices there are in the world. The only numbers I can find on Google are for a utility meter company which also happens to be named Itron.
µITRON (micro-ITRON, the embedded version we are talking
about) is in use in literally billions of devices. It’s
a real-time executive (don’t think of it as a kernel like
the linux kernel), and it runs on a huge variety of
silicon, including very simple stuff.
You find it in ‘sexy’ devices like car navigation systems, cellphones and DVD players, but also in ‘unsexy’, everyday, almost-100%-equipment-rate products like TVs, dishwashers and whatnot. Hence the sheer number of products.
My company is a member of the T-Engine forum and I can tell you that Sakamura-sensei is an exceptionally bright person. The ITRON API is extremely simple to learn and use, is free, and is as wellknown among engineers in Japan as Linux is these days in Europe/US.
Hi,
downloaded new 1.5 release and the link to the article is halting my mozilla completly? Anyone has similar experience?
Thanks,
-pekr-
Just think that every Toyota car out there with any sort of computr chip inside it (fuel injection for example) has Tron running inside.
Hmm, so it might also be ITRON that runs in ECU of most japanese cars. And that’s why it’s hard here to build something that can read or modify those ECU (to tweak them for better perf) since we didn’t know what was running inside (except a few people that kept the knowledge to them). I will investigate that I think.
Thanks for the idea!
any good info sites about its history (in more detail) ????
TRONWeb has the project history in English:
http://tronweb.super-nova.co.jp/homepage.html
It’s not exactly updated on a regular basis but there’s a lot of stuff.
If you can read Japanese there is a ton of info online as well.
If you can read Korean, Dr. Sakamura recently promoted T-Engine in korea and received some honors; there are some articles online about that too.
This operating system is incredible, I’m very pleased that OSNews gave it some publicity. I first heard about it roughly two weeks ago, sounds very cool.
–Tim