Re: Software for Central Heating Control

[John Rumm <see.my.signature@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

meow2222@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

> Maybe you're right. But OP needs to bear in mind the system needs to
> run reliably for at least 30 years, and servers are not designed to
> that high a reliability level. You'd need to source that PC very

Servers are a different kettle of fish though - they have moving parts
for starters.

> I took it as evident MS products would not feature in this one.

Well DOS probably would if you wanted ;-)

 > Linux
> is AFAIK not nearly stable enough to run for 30 years without
> maintenance, or even 3.

Plenty of Linux platforms about with uptimes of that and more. Remember
there is no need for maintenance / security patches etc on most embedded
systems.

Also many platforms of this type include hardware watchdog capabilities
to recover from system and software failures.

> Todays PCs will be no longer supported or available when they go wrong,
> so I'm not sure how much difference there.

Carefully written you ought to be able to get a fair amount of
portability at the code level. So even if the exact platform can not be
created that ought not matter.

 > The 2 plusses with BBCs is
> 1. they have an ongoing niche market, making replacement easy and
> minimal cost.

Oddly enough, a valid replacement would be an emulated BBC if needs be.
Even moderate speed embedded processors will be able to run a beeb
emulation such that code could run faster than on the real hardware if
required.

> 2. They need almost no setup: just plug the EPROM in and switch on.

No different for an embedded platform with flash file system, and less
hassle than programming a 27C256 (if you can still get them).


--
Cheers,

John.

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