.Net OS For Your ARM

Pyxis 2 is a recently released new embedded operating system. The first Pyxis OS would run on an arduino with a touch screen, and provided a nice GUI. Pyxis 2 on the other hand has departed from most of its predicator, and is now made on top of the .NET micro framework, and natively supports FEZ Cobra and ChipworkX systems. It supports 320×240, 480×272, even 800×480 (if you have the ram), LCDs.

Some of the features of the OS include alpha blended desktop icons, file dialogs, prompts, input, color selection, file box, buttons, all the standard stuff to construct your applications, support for network, USB, SD and Mp3. Since it is .NET you can also use C# visual studio to construct everything without dedicating yourself to hardware until you are ready.

Join us after the break for a short video.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XImxwR1iGsY&w=450]

28 thoughts on “.Net OS For Your ARM

  1. I know that this is a very clever bit of work and I’m super impressed by it.

    However I can’t help thinking this is a little like installing shiny aluminium wings on a humming bird

  2. So what’s the hardware setup look like (for an Arduino/AVR)?.. what are the memory req’s.. and how are you addressing all those resources from a simple AVR setup?

    Tweeks

  3. The requirements for .NET Micro itself are actually not too bad. Memory footprint is about 300K.

    I’m using it on one of my current projects, with a SAM9261. It’s a pretty sweet development platform. Gotta love VS2010.

  4. @CutThroughStuffGuy

    Pros:
    * .NET Micro Framework is Apache licensed
    * Mono will support .NET MF soon making it FOSS end to end
    * Programmed in C#

    Cons:
    * It’s Microsoft so people will rightly or wrongly be repulsed by it.
    * Will Microsoft support it?
    * Programmed in C#

  5. I just wanted to add that personally I think .NET is a great language for what it does. I can’t speak for the validity of using it on a small ARM system (but I can imagine that, depending on what you’re doing, its fine), but in general, .NET does a very good job for applications that don’t have any really high speed requirements. Like, I wouldn’t write a high end 3D game in .NET, but if you just need to use windows forms to interact with a user and move some data around, C# is really a great language (I can’t speak for visual basic or the other .NET languages).

    The visual studio IDE is awesome, and Microsoft really works hard to improve it. I used to think C# wasn’t a “real” language, but then I learned it and started writing programs with it, and honestly, its really, really nice.

    As far as people using it to write bad code – well, anyone can write bad code in any language.
    -Taylor

  6. I approve CLI and C# when you run it on accelerated/VM-supporting ARM chips :)
    Oh ok.. .NET is nice too when keeping it Mono-compatible. Actually Windows.Forms is nice too if you want to make user interfaces.. oh uhm.. right. Better than NS* classes anyways.

  7. This sounds like it would make a great addition for the Archos devices!

    I have an Archos 5 IMT (gen 6), a great little gadget running on ARM architecture which can handle up to 500GB of storage (mine is 120GB), with which I’ve been struggling to get the Armstrong Linux to do even the simplest tasks such as enabling wifi.

    I can’t wait to get Pyxis 2 up and running on it, it looks far more stable at least at a glance.

  8. @Stephen, there are quite a few companies that use the word Pyxis. Including but not limited to: Pyxis Mobile, CareFusion, Microsoft (code named one of it’s products Pyxis), etc. There are more than a dozen such examples. No name change is planned.

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