Read-only archive of the All About Symbian forum (2001–2013) · About this archive

IS Symbian OS a Real Time OS?

5 replies · 1,861 views · Started 04 November 2003

If yes, why? And if No, why? Can anyone please explain a little?

Sorry people, if I was not clear. I mean is Symbian OS capable of handling I/O calls etc. as fast as a real time OS, like Win CE ? I mean when we are working with Win XP or Linux, we do not call it a real time OS, as they are too slow to be used to control a machine.

Symbian is a single user multi tasking style OS. As a single user, it is a real time OS. Unlike those multi user OS, it is a time sharing OS.

The currently released Symbian operating system versions do not have a real-time kernel & cannot be called a real-time OS.

As far as I know, neither has/can Windows CE.

That is, assuming that real-time means what it usually means - to my knowledge - in the context of operating systems; that interrupt processing is deterministic, predictable = you know the absolute maximum time (latency) for any interrupt generated for it to begin being processed.

Why do you ask? Is there a particular problem that you're trying to solve or are you just curious?