On 10/2/06, mail.deamon@gmx.de <mail.deamon@gmx.de> wrote:
> hi list!
> is anybody familar with salvos rtos for pic?s?
> i might start with this programming with hitech?s pic18
> before i used for programming ccs and i love the port i/o functions but
> i am not able to get it working with salvo&ccs compiler.
> could anybody give me some hints for reading and knowing getting how to.
> ok thanks a lot
> tobi

I had Salvo (3.0.<mumble>) forced on me as part of a project a couple
of years ago.  I was not impressed.

Part of it was an EE who told everyone "I know how to program!", and
therefore should write the control loop himself -- I would write the "lowly"
I/O stuff.  He decided to use Salvo as part of his logic.  When he (a
contractor) was let go, I was given the entire project.

Another part of it was that he decided he didn't like the default
limits, and changed parameters and re-compiled the kernel.

When I got the project, it would run fine for a few days, then
"sh*t the bed" and write random values all over EEPROM (which
contained the calibration values).  We found this the hard way.

I looked all through that code, and didn't find it.  Wrote lots of
debug code,  hoping to catch it doing something unexpected.

Finally, I narrowed it down to something in Salvo.  Contacting
tech support was pretty much an exercise in futility.  I got
half-hearted answers, and when I asked if the EE's changes and
compile were correct, I was told that it "looked OK", and that
our support contract had run out (it had), so send him more
money if I wanted more tech support.

Based on his progress in support, I decided that was a losing
battle -- send him money, and hope he would actually do
something resembling help, or just get rid of Salvo.

So, I came in over the weekend, and on Saturday I exorcised
Salvo from the code, and on Sunday I tested.  Everything worked
just fine with a couple of simple state machines instead of
the RTOS.

An interesting side note was the effect on code / data space
and runtime:
   Code size decreased by 20%
   Data size decreased by 33%
   Run speed increased by 100%

The only "error" of note was from our testing fixture -- since
the program was now twice as fast (500us message turn
around instead of 1ms), the testing fixutre could not keep
up with it and had to be updated.

Another note:  Telling this story later on the HiTech support
forum boards, I received email from the author of Salvo saying
that he was willing to help me work out the problems.  I
replied that the time for help was when I was trying to get
support, and that Salvo was gone and never coming back.

Bill

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