> The NT kernel sits on top of
> what they term the "HAL" or Hardware Access Layer,
Abstraction. Hardware Abstraction Layer.
> which abstracts the
> underlying hardware. When NT gets ported to new platforms (a dying
> art form it seems) MS ports the HAL, not the NT kernel.
Of course, if you separate into kernel and userland, you'll agree that
HAL is *part* of the kernel. Right?
> There are a couple of commercial Real-Time products on the market that
> produce hard Real-Time for NT by adding another kernel on top of the
> HAL -- producing real-time by completely bypassing NT for real-time
> apps. This particular pig (bloated pig at that) looks micro-kernel to
> me.
Still, it has kernel level stuff like file systems, scheduling, graphics
system(!), which traditionally has been user processes in micro kernel
designs.
This theme has been beaten to death on Usenet, and the conclusion is
that while NT retains some MK aspects, it is not really. It is to
microkernels what Pentium is to RISC.
~kzm
-- If I haven't seen further, it is by standing in the footprints of giants