Thoughts needed

[Henry Spencer]

>...  A Unix (or unix-like)
>system is probably not your best bet for doing data acquisition on.
>Unix was designed from the beginning to be a time-share system, not a
>real-time system.

There is nothing about Unix that makes it inherently unsuited to be a
real-time system.  Real-time variants of it exist, and many labs have done
quite extensive real-time work under it.  All that having been said, Unix
as it usually comes out of the box isn't well adapted to real-time work.
Unless you have a version that has been adapted, or are capable of doing
it yourself, you're probably better off with a program loader (e.g. MSDOS)
that gives your program absolute control of the hardware, rather than a
real operating system (e.g. Unix) that may insist on playing some part
in things at inopportune times.
-- 
NASA is to spaceflight as            |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
the Post Office is to mail.          | {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry