Intel Pentium III Processor/840, Manual, Page: 17 / 151

Intel
®
Pentium
®
III Processor/840 Development Kit Manual 2-5
Getting Started
2.3.2 Microsoft Windows Embedded NT
While the business world welcomed Windows NT into their MIS and IT environments, Microsoft
introduced Windows NT as an embedded operating system. Target Designer*, a new tool from
Microsoft, enables Windows NT to be scaled for embedded applications. Target sizes can range
from 10 Mbytes to 30 Mbytes. Although not small by most embedded standards, Embedded NT
can be well suited to many demanding applications.
A relatively small footprint alone is not enough to allow Windows NT to address the demands of
the control application world. But the attraction of a powerful, ubiquitous, general-purpose
operating system is creating demand for Windows NT for use in industrial automation computing.
Windows NT, as a platform to build on, fosters continuous improvement and leverages the skills of
the average user. For automation system designers, Windows NT makes it easy to add tasks,
improve the system incrementally, and upgrade different components at different times.
Windows NT includes significant and unique features. These include: RAM based operation (no
disk based page file), ROM booting and CD ROM booting, Headless operation (no keyboard,
mouse, or display), and remote administration. Windows Embedded NT also supports the
VenturCom RTX scheduling enhancements for Real-time and deterministic application
performance.
An embedded system developer would use Target Designer to configure a device-specific OS using
Windows NT binaries, embedded-enabling technologies and an application. If necessary,
Component Designer* is used to create reusable components that were not included in the product
(i.e., some device drivers, applications, etc.) Once created, new components can be imported into
Target Designer where they can then be incorporated into the device OS. Once an OS has been
configured in Target Designer, dependencies are checked and a runnable image is produced which
can then be loaded onto the device.
The target image provided was created with Target Designer based on a “standard” configuration
model, with optimized drivers for the on-board Ethernet controller and the add-in PCI video
adapter on the Intel Pentium
III processor/840 evaluation board. Also included on the target image
is VenturCom’s Platform Evaluator, a real-time performance evaluation tool for Windows NT and
Windows NT Embedded. The sample image is a semi-functional Microsoft Windows NT system,
which contains enough NT components to adequately provide a basic functional system with a
keyboard, mouse, CD-ROM, floppy, COM ports, PCI graphic card and the on-board networking.
The created image provides the following components:
•
Workstation system with a uniprocessor or a multiprocessor HAL
•
Storage device support for floppy, fixed disk, CD-ROM, and file system support (NTFS, FAT,
and CDFS)
•
SCSI support — USB support, parallel ports, RDRAM, etc.
•
COM1/COM2 serial ports and LPT1 parallel port support
•
Networking support for TCP/IP and workgroup participation
•
Windows Explorer
Note: The graphics and network interface card drivers are for the add-in video card included in your kit
and the on-board Ethernet controller.
VenturCom’s Platform Evaluator* application is also provided and is an easy-to-use tool for
determining the right hardware platform for your real-time application. It allows you to vary the
system loads, select the measurement criteria, and determine an accurate measurement of the real-