VxWorks Gets Eclipsed

Oct. 28, 2004

VXWorks developers have another option when it comes to open-source development tools. MCC Systems' Right Tool for VxWorks and its sibling, Right Tool for Linux, are based on Eclipse 3.0, the open-source integrated development environment....

William G. Wong

Each version is built on the same base. The difference concerns the plug-in for the cross-development target. The VxWorks plug-in supports the real-time operating system (RTOS), including a fix that enables multiple target shells to be open at the same time. This gives developers an interactive window into the target system. It also supports multiple targets. Such a feature is similar to the multiple shell support found in the Linux version. Of course, the Eclipse plug-ins can coexist for the environments that mix VxWorks and Linux platforms.

The plug-ins provide RTOS awareness, and the windows offer access to operating-system variables. On Linux, the corresponding script for accessing this information is available.

Both systems support the GNU toolset, including the GDB graphical debugger. C/C++ support comes from the Eclipse CDT v2.0. One difference between Right Tool and many other Eclipse-based solutions is that MCC Systems has released all of its product as open-source. Systems and services start around $30,000.

MCC Systems Inc.www.mccengineering.com

About the Author

William G. Wong | Senior Content Director - Electronic Design and Microwaves & RF

I am Editor of Electronic Design focusing on embedded, software, and systems. As Senior Content Director, I also manage Microwaves & RF and I work with a great team of editors to provide engineers, programmers, developers and technical managers with interesting and useful articles and videos on a regular basis. Check out our free newsletters to see the latest content.

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I earned a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Masters in Computer Science from Rutgers University. I still do a bit of programming using everything from C and C++ to Rust and Ada/SPARK. I do a bit of PHP programming for Drupal websites. I have posted a few Drupal modules.

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