Tics Realtime Customer Comments

I am writing to let you know how much we like your product. The Tics Realtime Kernel has become a favored and well used tool for applications we write for customers and for our own internal use. We have included Tics in over a dozen systems.

The Tics Kernel is one of those rare pieces of software that finds the balance between power and simplicity and evokes the term "elegance." The Tics approach to kernel services and inter-task communication and synchronization allows us to implement our real-time designs the way we think about them. The message and queuing features that are built into Tics tasks keep our software simple and straightforward. We are using Tics in systems written in C and C++ and have found that Tics works well with both.

Most of our systems require serial communication and we have found the Tics comm functions for DOS to be exactly what we need. We have also been able to integrate Tics with an event driven user interface library to create multi-threaded user interfaces under DOS. These systems are simple and fast and our customers love them. Tics has made our lives a whole lot easier. We are looking forward to more products from you in the future.

I wish to commend you for a well designed and cost-effective Tics Realtime Kernel Product. I have ported the kernel to a Motorola MC68030 CPU embedded environment. The kernel's source code files were well organized to allow me to complete the port for the Microtec C cross compiler within 16 hours. Your support via telephone facilitated the task. The kernel has performed flawlessly without any system crashes since its installation in November, 1995.

My training is in electronics and I write the software for embedded systems that I design. I appreciate the kernel's simplicity and reliability and will recommend it to anyone that requires a stand-alone real-time kernel.

Got your shipment of the Tics Realtime Kernel. Looks like a good product. You seem to have found an excellent balance between simplicity and flexibility and my distribution worked fine right out of the box for some simple DOS based experiments. The services are simple and act predictably. Congratulations...

Tics is very capable yet simple to use and understand. The code is well written and solid...I personally ported Tics to both the 6809 and the 68332 in a few days. Since the code is clear and well done, you basically just have to modify a few functions and voila, it's up and running...

If you ever need support the designer of the product will be there to answer questions or listen to your suggestions. You talk to someone who understands what you are saying and knows what he is talking about, not someone sitting there to take notes and queue your requests...

Don't be fooled by the low price and the fact that you get source code. The way I see it, Tics has been developed by a programmer for programmers. Why spend ten times (or even 100 times) the price when Tics can easily do the job...

Tics is running in our most important product. As a matter of fact, it has been running flawlessly for more than a year now. The system where it is used is based on a 68332; it controls 2 machines in real time, with about 50 parallel I/O's, 4 serial ports, and 4 SPI ports. The system constantly exchanges data and controls 6 other 8 bit microcontrollers. With Tics we were able to simplify our design and get the product out in time.

I have been using the Tics Realtime Kernel with Borland C/C++ 3.x for a period of about four years now. My real-time needs are associated with complex machine, process control, and data acquisition in manufacturing state-of-the-art semiconductor and lightwave products. Tics has proven to be the ideal solution to my real-time development needs under the successful MS-DOS operating system and its embedded variants. Tics allows me to circumvent the non-deterministic response times and the multi-megabyte .exe's associated with any of the Windowed operating systems. I have successfully implemented Tics in combination with various third party function libraries used for screen and hardware control. The kernel code is highly compact and solid, plus gives you the luxury of access to the C source code for learning purposes or adapting to other targets processors.

The supplied bonus book "The Art of Real-time Programming" provides much needed insight, tips, and techniques into real-time programming issues. The author's writing style and implementation details makes even dense concepts crystal clear.

I was very impressed with the personal, knowledgeable, and timely technical support provided by Tics Realtime. The understanding and assistance was surely appreciated. They not only met my expectations for support, they exceeded them.

...I am a digital hardware and embedded software design engineer for Hughes Aircraft and have used the Tics RTOS on a couple of our projects. I have found Tics to be a very powerful, productivity enhancing tool. Before reading up on Tics, I considered "rolling my own" stripped down RTOS for our real-time PC applications. But given the low cost, the full feature set, the easy learning curve, the excellent documentation, and the outstanding customer support provided by Tics, it was a no-brainer to choosing Tics instead...

...As software developers for a prominent gaming company, it was decided that our latest project should be based on a real-time OS. Our company having already purchased several such RTOSs in preparation for this project, it was left up to our team to determine which package would provide both the flexibility that we needed and the fast learning curve that our project deadline required.

After personally developing several small test programs using various products, your RTOS was chosen as the base upon which our system would be built. The Tics Realtime Operating System has proven time and time again that we made the right decision. Besides providing a feature-rich, flexible operating system whose limitations I have yet to encounter in my application, your product has allowed our team to produce maximum results with a minimum learning-related down time. Three aspects of your package make this possible: a practically self explanatory command set; thorough, well thought out support literature; and an exemplary customer support policy.

I have no doubt that your product will continue to prove itself throughout the development of this product and will definitely be my RTOS of choice for years to come.