Target and development systems

Books like this, which include specific references to hardware and software, tend to become obsolete quickly in the fast-paced world of technology. This is unfortunate because there is broad agreement among professionals, academics, and students that the integration of theory and its applications is preferable to each in isolation. We have attempted to meet this challenge with a versioning system and a companion website tightly integrated with the text.

The versioning system includes a target system TX—the system to be programmed and controlled—and a development system DY—the system used to write and deploy programs to the target computer. This book is oriented about the target system T1 and development system D1, but much of its content is generally applicable to real-time computing. The sections of the book that are specific to the target or the development system are denoted throughout in the margin. All target and development systems conform to the general structure shown in figure A.1.

A target system TX is somewhat general, in that some specific hardware (e.g., make, model) is not defined. Rather, general characteristics of that hardware are specified. For instance, the T1 target system specifies the myRIO 1900 as the target computer but specifies an “analog current amplifier” for the amplifier. In the book, the amplifier will be treated as a generic device with variables like the gain left unspecified. However, the companion website includes specific target systems with all the hardware fully specified, with make, model, and suppliers listed. We give these designations like “T1a,” “T1b,” and so on. This versioning system allows us to ensure that the target systems can be built well into the future.