Since Pyxis 2 is separate from Netby I thought I’d start a new thread for any issues, requests that people have when using the beta…which is now available!
Video: [url]Pyxis 2.0 Beta Released! - YouTube
Source & Docs: [url]http://www.skewworks.com/products/Pyxis%20OS%202.0[/url]
Looks really nice!
I will be developing a few application for Pyxis pretty soon like my Weather Clock.
Wow. I like that. Very professional!
Damn good job. Will be loading it on my cobra soon.
Pyxis 2 will be getting the ability to unload applications very soon! :dance:
Wow. You have created an amazing piece of software there :o
I will load it onto my cobra soon! 
Good work. I will need to talk to you privately on something GHI is working on.
1000 points for all the hard work
Sure thing Gus, you want to email me and we can set something up?
So they Pyxis replaces the GHI firmware?
No! This is a high level OS that runs on top of NETMF which runs on top of GHI firmware
Kurt - Pyxis2 is on top of the GHI firmware. It’s also very early beta, lots of things left to work out. For example the current beta cannot unload assemblies once they are added, the next beta will be able to.
Gus - If you need my email it’s thom@ [my username] .com
I am extremely busy but I will be contacting you directly soon.
What was the motivation for creating the OS?
Gus - OK, no worries.
Kurt - I originally wrote Pyxis 1 for the Arudino because I wanted to be able to run external apps, which just couldn’t be done with the architecture that chip used. For Pyxis 1 I actually had to write my own compiler and virtual CPU; it took ages. Anyway I posted progress on YouTube and it attracted a lot of attention so Pyxis became commercially available early this year. A few months in one of my customers wrote in asking for support for FEZ. Eventually (last month) I ordered up a Domino and was really impressed so I started writing the new version.
Preview: 32bit images on Pyxis2
Humm… sounds good. I don’t suppose that you’ll tell us who that Domino customer was? Chris might want to send that person a big hug.
I’d contemplated trying to port Singularity over to .netMF but with this operating system I suppose it’s better.
How did you acheive the task scheduling, and do you think that the system could be adapted to support multiple processors…?
I’d have to go through my emails to track down who it was that requested it.
For the task scheduling that’s not fully implemented yet, though the overall principle isn’t that difficult. The only thing that actually makes it harder is NETMF doesn’t allow you to enumerate through threads so I can’t exert the same level of control as a traditional OS could.
I do see why it couldn’t be modified to run over 2 or more cores. What sort of system did you have in mind?
Note that you can read and decode 32bit images but the results are always 16bit 
Why? The internal coding is all done to handle 16-bit only and the hardware itself is 16-bit color.
Do you really need 32-bit color on an embedded system? Images look very very nice on NETMF. The only thing it lacks is alpha channel, but again, is this really worth losing precious-embedded-resource to get alpha? In 99.9% of applications, it is not needed at all. I have never seen one myself.
I’m trying to find a way to squeeze more compute power out of the embedded devices. They’re inexpensive and easy to work with so finding a way to get them to work together in the same system intrigues me. I’ve been without a smart phone for almost 2 years now (not since the loss of my N97) and I’ve refused to purchase another because the OSes suck. If windows phone 7 turns out to suck as well, then I’m going to try to create my own. I’ve got all the hardware air marked, but what I need is an OS that will allow me to create “dazzling” applications (preferably silverlight based) using Visual Studio. I know silverlight (or MoonLight) is asking a lot but my expectations are very high.
embedded is much better because you have full control over things but then when you use a $10 CPU vs $100 CPU you will have to eliminate some of the high end features that are not very important to embedded systems…silverlight on embedded? VERY bad idea! FLASH and Silverlight run slow on 200mhz processors with millions of bytes of memory! 400mhz will barely make it work.
Miniature web server? nice idea 
Think embedded and still keep your expectation high because what FEZ allows you to do is impossible with anything else out there! Do not forget it is Freakin’ Easy! 