FSMLabs is making its way through the DO178 requirements and we’ve given a lot of thought to Common Criteria over the last couple years. One of the advantages of DO178 is that it does not accept the totally untested and
Above all, the SUSPENSE: Wind River’s DSO with Robert Mitchum and hippies! (updated)
I’ve been meaning to write about DSO – WindRiver’s attempt to define synthetic “standards” (see the linuxdevices article for technical detail and a more serious approach). “Is DSO hype or substance?” asked Wind River CEO Ken Klein during the sponsored
Paul Erdös day
March 26 is Paul Erdös birthday. The book about Erdös by Paul Hoffman is a nice read and thought provoking. Erdös’ concept of the BOOK recording the most elegant proofs is one that is natural for both mathematicians and engineers
Spinning the press about technology
We’ve been an engineering driven company from day one – something that leads us to be frustrated with “analysts” and reporters who seem unwilling to challenge marketing. For example, here’s how a recent Investor’s Business Daily article starts: “With a
Auragen computers remembered
In the early 1980s, I worked for a start-up called Auragen Computers based in Fort Lee, New Jersey. We were making a 68K based fault tolerant UNIX based on a smart idea by Sam Glazer. Most of the software engineers
AMD powered 16 core systems are real
We’re finishing some tests on the IWill 8-chip 16 core server and seeing outstanding timing. RTCore can share Linux with cores or reserve them for real-time. On reserved cores the jitter time we have found to be fundamental never reaches
The long haul in the embedded software business.
Chris Lanfear from VDC systems asks FSMLabs has the product line, but lacks the market presence and awareness that other companies have invested in with venture-backed capital. We believe the company has largely bootstrapped itself over the years and while
PowerPoint and RocketScience II
In a previous note I objected to venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki’s requests (demands) for shallow and glib sales pitches in PowerPoint, but Professor Edward Tufte is also asking for sales pitches, just ones with more sober disguise. When you read
Digital Rights Management and Logic
The Sony DRM fiasco is due to a common failure of requirements management logic. If an engineered system relies on certain properties, whenever you add a new requirement, you need to check consistency. You have a boat that has EnoughCargoSpace
Power Point, Rocket Science and dangers of compelling stories
In American English, you can say that something is not too difficult by saying “it’s not rocket science.” We don’t have a good idiom for saying the opposite – that something is hard to understand, not bullet-pointable. Edward Tufte dislikes