RMX

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This article is about the RMX Operating System; for the application, see RM-X General Purpose Control; for the mail protocol, see Reverse MX.

iRMX is a real-time operating system for the Intel 8080 and 8086. It is an acronym for Real-time Multitasking eXecutive. Intel developed iRMX in the late 1970s and originally released it in 1980 to support and help create demand for their processors. [1] Effective 2000 iRMX is owned by TenAsys. [2]

iRMX is a layered design: a kernel, nucleus, basic i/o system, extended i/o system and human interface. Each installation need include only the components required: intertask synchronization, communication subsystems, a filesystem, extended memory management, command shell, etc. The native filesystem is specific to iRMX, but has many similarities to the original Unix (V6) filesystem, such as 14 character path name components, file nodes, sector lists, application readable directories, etc.

Several variations have been developed: iRMX I, II and III, iRMX-86, iRMX-286, DOS-RMX, and iRMX for Windows. All were developed by 1992.

1 iRMX
2 DOS-RMX
3 iRMX for Windows
4 Uses
5 External links

[edit] iRMX

The I, II, III, -286 and -86 variants are intended as standalone operating systems. A number of development utilities and applications were made for iRMX, such as compilers (PL/M, Fortran, C), an editor TX, process and data acquisition applications and others. Also, cross compilers hosted on VAX/VMS were available from Intel. Today iRMX III is supported and used as core technology for newer real-time virtualization RTOS products including INtime and iRMX for Windows

[edit] DOS-RMX

This functions as a TSR from the DOS perspective, but iRMX takes over the CPU, changing to protected mode and running DOS in one virtual machine within an RMX task. This combination provides RMX real-time functionality as well as full MS-DOS services.

[edit] iRMX for Windows

Like DOS-RMX, this provides a mixture of services and capabilities: MS-DOS, Windows and iRMX. In addition, an inter application communication via an enhanced Windows DDE capability allows RMX tasks to communicate with Windows. In 2002 iRMX for Windows was reintroduced adding these same RMX personalities to the INtime real-time for Windows RTOS.

[edit] Uses

Siemens uses a modified version of iRMX on the Siemens HiPath 4000 which is used in conjunction with UnixWare7/8 and VxWorks. RMX provides resistance to virus attacks, mostly because few viruses have been developed to target it.

RMX is most popular in the telecommunications industry where it has been advertised as the industry standard.