Complicated math, Multi-tasking in ECMs

[Jim Pieronek]

Dale Ulan writes:
 > ...
 > > This drove me nuts after a while and I secretly wrote a tiny
 > > multi-tasking exec for our ECM that was referred to as the "secret
 > > weapon exec" by us software guys.  This was strictly against Delco
 > ....
 > Did that end up in the 6801-based ECM?
 > 
 > I found a neat address table that is used to call various routines.
 > There were 16 addresses, and the routine called them in a round-robin
 > fashion. Was this the thing you're talking about, or....
 > maybe I should quit asking so many questions...
 > 

No, that is the thing that I got rid of.  I put all 16 of those devils
into one task that had the lowest priority.  That way I didn't have to
worry about making sure that everything got done in time for those
fellows to get their piece of the pie.  Much of the rest of the code
ran in interrupt routines.

 > Here's my software design... and coding on it is going ok. Should have
 > it running sometime in early January. I don't think many people
 > like the way I do things, but...
 > 

Thanks for all the gory details.  As far as the multi-tasking stuff
goes - ya gotta do what ya gotta do.  If you like doing it your way,
well, you've got about a billion GM cars out there doing the same
thing.  That's hard (not impossible, but hard) to argue with.

- Jim