As computer software has become more complex in response to increasing demands and greater levels of abstraction, so have computer operating systems. In order to achieve the desired level of functionality, operating systems have become less flexible and overly complex. The additional complexity and abstraction introduced often leads to less efficient use of hardware and increased hardware requirements. In embedded systems with limited hardware resources, efficient resource use is extremely important to the functionality of the resources. Therefore, operating system functionality not useful for the embedded system's applications is detrimental to the system. Component-based software provides a way to achieve both the efficient application-specific functionality required in embedded systems and the ability to extend this functionality to other applications. This thesis presents a component-based operating system, VORTOS, the Versatile Object-oriented Real-Time Operating System. VORTOS uses a virtual machine to abstract the hardware, eliminating the need for further portability abstractions within the operating system and application level components. The simple modular component architecture allows both the operating system and user applications to be extremely flexible by allowing them to utilize the particular components required, without sacrificing performance.
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