Re: Embedded Systems development using Python

[Stefan Behnel]

VGNU Linux, 06.09.2010 13:02:
> Can Python be used for embedded systems development ?

It can and has been.

What kind of embedded system with what set of capabilities are you thinking
about? TV sets? Mobile phones? Smart dust?

Stefan

[Peter Fodrek]

On Monday 06 September 2010 13:02:56 VGNU Linux wrote:
> Hi List,

> Can Python be used for embedded systems development ?

It is hard to say yes or no. For hard Real-time systems or hard Real-time
parts of complex system answer is no, in another type of embedded systems yes
or maybe

> If Yes can anyone point me to a tutorial/reference website which explains
> about this.

There are no tutorials to do so as I know.

Peter

[Antoine Pitrou]

On Mon, 6 Sep 2010 17:22:09 +0530
VGNU Linux <vgnu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> A small device like a mobile but with only 2 major buttons, with GPS and
> GPRS capabilities.
> Can anyone tell me from where to start learning about this ?

Read the official docs for the C API:
http://docs.python.org/extending/embedding.html
http://docs.python.org/extending/index.html
http://docs.python.org/c-api/

You'll probably need at least a 32-bit CPU and some non-negligible
amount of RAM. If not, then you'll want to take a look at alternatve
implementations of Python:
http://wiki.python.org/moin/EmbeddedPython

Regards

Antoine.

[Grant Edwards]

[The OP never showed up on my sever for some reason]

If you google for "deeply embedded python", you'll find some raterh
old links:

http://tucs.fi/magazin/output.php?ID=2000.N2.LilDeEmPy
http://groups.google.com/group/python-on-a-chip/web/list-of-small-python-implementations
http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-announce-list/1999-August/000157.html

A few years ago I used Python on a prototype for a bicycle computer
with GPS, four buttons, and a small LCD screen. It was more or less
comparable to a PDA with Linux running on an 200MHz XScale with
something like 16MB of flash and 32MB of SDRAM.

IIRC, that project used OpenEmbedded, and all I had to do was build
the Python package that's already there in OE. I don't remember if I
was using PySDL or PyQt for the UI -- I remember experimenting with
both on desktop hosts at the time.

I don't think that product ever saw daylight. There was just now way
they could have competed with Garmin.

--
Grant