BeRTOS								-*- outline -*-

* Overwiew

BeRTOS is a real-time operating system designed for building applications
for embedded systems, like reference boards, test boards, or custom boards.

It has a modular structure: its components can be used in very different
environments, from 8-bit processor to Linux and Win32 hosted application
(for debug purpose), using a wide range of compilers.

* History and Motivation

BeRTOS was born as a collection of usefull, highly optimized and fine-tuned
libraries for embedded systems.  Each library had its own scope and could be
used singularly in a project, though they were also meant to cooperate to
build the wole underlying software layer commonly called "operating system".

We have grown it following our guidelines: simplicity and beauty.
These guidelines have make possible its evolution in a full-featured real
time operating system, with more modularity than other embedded OS,
without givin up reliability and performace.

To achieve the highest possible reusability, most BeRTOS components are
designed for fine-grained modularity and minimal external dependencies.
Most non-essential features can be configured out for application with small
memory footprint requirements.

* Features

  - multitasking kernel with IPC, semaphores, priority levels;
  - a comprehensive set of generic drivers for a wide range of devices, 
    which can be easily customized to the actual hardware: timer, serial, 
    adc, ntc, pwm, stepper motors, dc motors, lcd, keyboards, buzzer, eeprom;
  - full graphic subsystem for simple displays, with font support, bitmaps,
    clipping, text formatting, interactive menus;
  - simple console with command parser;
  - readline-like support for command history;
  - entropy generator and random numbers generator optimized for embedded
    systems;
  - checksumming and hashing functions (CRC, MD2);
  - full hash-table implementation with double-hashing collisition resolution;
  - XMODEM protocol implementation;
  - RLE compression algorithm;

* Directory Structure

The modules are sorted in subdirectories by their category:

  - algos/   : algorithms;
  - app/     : demo application;
  - cfg/     : configuration stuffs;
  - cxxutil/ : c++ libraries;
  - doc/     : documentation;
  - drv/     : hardware drivers;
  - dt/	     : ?
  - emul/    : Qt-based emulator framework for embedded applications;
  - fonts/   : fonts
  - gfx/     : feneral pourpose graphics routines;
  - gui/     : widgets for simples displays;
  - hw/	     : hardware-specific decalrations;
  - icons/   : conversion tool from image TXT format to LCD bitmap;
  - io/	     : infrastructure of I/O-related modules for hosted applications;
  - kern/    : multitasking kernel;
  - mware/   : algorithms, containers and other standalone code;
  - os/	     : OS-abstraction layers for hosted environments;
  - qtext    : ?

The top-level directory contains a few support headers that are meant to be
usable by any C/C++ embedded or hosted application.