Contiki

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This article contains content from the Wikipedia article:

Contiki

Not to be confused with Kontiki.

Contiki
Screenshot of the VNC server running on the Atmel AVR port of Contiki.
Website	http://www.sics.se/contiki/
Company/ developer	Adam Dunkels
Source model	Open source
Latest stable release	2.2.1 / September 6 2008
Default user interface	CTK
License	BSD License
Working state	Current

Contiki is a small, open source, highly portable, multitasking computer operating system developed for use on a number of memory-constrained networked systems ranging from 8-bit computers to embedded systems on microcontrollers, including sensor network motes. The name Contiki comes from Thor Heyerdahl's famous Kon-Tiki raft.

Despite providing multitasking and a built-in TCP/IP stack, Contiki only needs a few kilobytes of code and a few hundred bytes of RAM. A full system, complete with a graphical user interface, needs about 30 kilobytes of RAM.

The basic kernel and most of the core functions were developed by Adam Dunkels at the Networked Embedded Systems group at the Swedish Institute of Computer Science.

1 Design
2 Platforms
3 Features
4 Ports
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

[edit] Design

Contiki is designed for embedded systems with small amounts of memory. A typical Contiki configuration is 2 kilobytes of RAM and 40 kilobytes of ROM.

Contiki consists of an event-driven kernel on top of which application programs are dynamically loaded and unloaded at runtime. Contiki processes use light-weight protothreads that provide a linear, thread-like programming style on top of the event-driven kernel.

[edit] Platforms

Contiki runs on a variety of platform ranging from embedded microcontrollers such as the TI MSP430 and the Atmel AVR to old homecomputers. Code footprint is on the order of kilobytes and memory usage can be configured to be as low as tens of bytes.

[edit] Features

Screenshot of the C64 port of Contiki.

Contiki supports per-process optional preemptive multi-threading, inter-process communication using message passing through events, as well as an optional GUI subsystem with either direct graphic support for locally connected terminals or networked virtual display with VNC or over Telnet.

A full installation of Contiki includes the following features:

Multitasking kernel
Optional per-application pre-emptive multithreading
Protothreads
TCP/IP networking, including IPv6
Windowing system and GUI
Networked remote display using Virtual Network Computing
A web browser (claimed to be the world's smallest)
Personal web server
Simple telnet client
Screensaver

[edit] Ports

The Contiki operating system has been or is being ported to the following systems:

Computers:
- Apple II family^[1]
- Atari 8-bit^[1]
- Atari ST
- Atari Portfolio
- Casio Pocketview
- Commodore PET^[1]
- Commodore VIC 20^[1]
- Commodore 64^[1]
- Commodore 128^[1]
- GP32
- Oric
- PC-6001
- Sharp Wizard
- x86-based Unix-like systems, on top of GTK+ as well as directly using the X Window System^[2]
Video game consoles:
- PC Engine
- Sega Dreamcast
- Sony PlayStation