How are everyday machines programmed? [closed]

Solution 1:

Most of what you're talking about are embedded systems where C is a luxury that may not be available. The software often isn't separate programs running under an OS like you'd have on a desktop or phone, especially if the chip the designers chose to use is described as a "microcontroller".

Most of the time the software is written in C or assembly. C requires a compiler to be written for that platform (and might produce bloated or inefficient asm if it doesn't optimize well), but a simple assembler only has to turn text into machine code one line at a time and is easy to write. (And if a vendor wants anyone to buy their microcontrollers, they'll make sure at least an assembler exists for it to make development attractive, often also a C compiler although sometimes non-optimizing.)

Your coffee pot and most simple systems like that don't carry an operating system. They simply load from a start address in memory and you put your code there. Often these systems have their "code" burned into EEPROMS that act as the hard drive of the system. Or depending on the type of EEPROM / flash, code may be able to run directly from flash without having to get loaded into RAM first. (The device may not be able to write to its own flash memory; that's done with external tools. The edit/compile/run cycle may include reprogramming the flash of actual hardware, if not testing in a simulator.)

Coca-cola machines, routers, etc. typically use a realtime OS like QNX, EMBOS, or sometimes RTlinux if you're lucky. Most of these are proprietary OS you license for lots of money, but they have C compilers, drivers to work with hardware, etc.

http://www.qnx.com/

http://www.segger.com/cms/embos.html

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsembedded/en-us/campaigns/compact7/default.aspx?WT.srch=1&WT.mc_ID=SEARCH

RTLinux

Solution 2:

They use microcontrollers, the 8051 is the classic one. These are 8-bit or 16-bit cores, they rarely have an operating system. The programmer writes the code to initialize the onboard peripherals and implement the interrupt handlers. Languages used are assembly and C. Tough debugging jobs require an in-circuit emulator.

There's lots of growing room beyond this, with 32-bit embedded cores (ARM is the 100 pound gorilla) that boot an embedded version of Linux and/or the Java JVM.

Solution 3:

These are embedded systems, and would be programmed using a very low-level language such as C or assembly. In general such a system will run without an operating system, although some newer "everyday machines" such as blue-ray DVD players and wireless routers do run their code on top of a unix-based operating system.

Along the lines of what others have said, many modern embedded systems also run a flavor of windows. It depends up on the application. Also, there is a trend in many spaces to run on a more powerful platform with an operating system, to handle cases such as Blue-ray players needing to run Java, and other instances where the end user desires more functionality.