[drumdance]

Heh. Early on in my software education, I asked a friend of mine about the difference between real time systems and normal. He said, "In real time systems, if something goes wrong, the Space Shuttle blows up." Seems like an apt metaphor.

[dedward]

no need for the drama. realtime simply implies there is known, hard maximum time it will take for certain in-scope operations to take place, so you can design around that. a realtime os will often be slower overall than the non-realtime os on the same gear. the bottom line is about predictable, knowable behaviour.

challenger blew up because of a fuel leak, not the lack ofi an rtos.