
Real-time operating systems 253
behind it are to provide vendor independence, protection from
technical obsolescence, the availability of standard off-the-shelf
applications, the preservation of software investment and to pro-
vide connectivity between computers.
It is based on UNIX but has added a set of real-time
extensions as defined in the POSIX 1003.4 document. These cover
a more sophisticated semaphore system which uses the open() call
to create them. This call is more normally associated with opening
a file. The facilities include persistent semaphores which retain
their binary state after their last use, and the ability to force a task
to wait ...