To me, embedded has always meant a computer system built for a specific purpose where the user is very unlikely to run software of his own choosing on it. It doesn't fundamentally have much to do with resource constraints. Also the user interface of an embedded system is usually specialized for its purpose - often having only a few buttons or a basic touchscreen with no facility for a full keyboard. On Wed, Sep 27, 2017 at 3:30 AM, Wouter van Ooijen wrote: > Hi everyone > > I waved PICs goodbye a long time ago, and switched mainly to ARM/Cortex > and C++ for micro-controller programming. A side-effects of this is that > I'll be doing the closing keynote on the Meeting C++ conference in > Berlin, november this year, on the subject of (C++ and) embedded. My > picture is up on the website, so I can't deny it any more.. > > Which leads me to my problem: the term "embedded" is often used for the > time/space/energy/cost/xxx-sensitive work done on micro-controllers. > (Roughly what was thye focus of this group in its big days.) But this > "embbeed" term was a problem from the beginning (embedded systems can > and do contain large computer systems, with a very different way of > programming), and is getting even more so these days (ESP8266 are > programmed in Lua and Python, and how long will it be before a > single-chip system will run a common Linux distro?). > > Hence the term "embedded" is no longer sufficient to describe a > programming (and system design) style that is (very) sensitive to (code > and data) space and timing. So do you have a better (preferrably > one-word) term to describe this domain? The best I have so far is > probably "severly resource constrained", but that is not 100% accurate > and too long by two words . "small micro-controller" is another > candidate, but it is still one word too long, and feels negative. > > A better term, anyone? > > -- > Wouter "Objects? No Thanks!" van Ooijen > > -- > http://www.piclist.com/techref/piclist PIC/SX FAQ & list archive > View/change your membership options at > http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist > --=20 http://www.piclist.com/techref/piclist PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist .