Dick, I have made my living for 28 years now designing embedded systems. Remarkably, you have just told Stan that my line of work is "passed the bounds of the practical". Please do a Google search on "Embedded Systems" and you will discover that there is an entire thriving industry that you seem entirely unaware of.
Embedded systems typically employ a kernel written in-house (as, for example, ES&S's DREs do) or an RTOS (Real Time Operating System), of which there are more than a hundred on the market. You may wish to Google that term, too.
There are hundreds of specialized processors from all the major manufacturers that are tailored to specific niches of the embedded market.
Intel, realizing it was missing the embedded market because it end-of-lifes its desktop CPUs three years after introduction, now introduces a new x86 chip from time to time that is guaranteed to remain in production as long as there is a demand for it. For this reason, most embedded systems that use x86 CPUs use some variant of a 486 or 386.
Microsoft introduced CE in order to try to get into the embedded systems market. It has gained some popularity among non-critical applications. However, no critical device uses a Microsoft OS and few use Linux; by critical device I mean, for example, a Class 3 or class 2 FDA device or avionics systems certified under RTCA/DO-178B.
Your comments leave me no choice but to conclude that you have no knowledge of the entire arena of computer engineering that Stan and I, among others, have been discussing.
Vince Lipsio
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You raise some interesting theoretical issues, but my sense of it is that you have passed the bounds of the practical. The economic basis of computers was and is that they may run more than one program. It does not have to be this way; you could design and build a dedicated, one-purpose machine with hardware and software all custom crafted. Quite expensive, really, since all development costs must be amortized over one specialized application. The profit potential is limited, given the costs of development, so no private party would want to do this. Are you sure that the political realities are such that the U.S. Government in a time of deficit would choose to spend money on elections rather than tax cuts? I might agree with you on the desired approach to election equipment, but I am not very influential regarding the federal government's spending plans.
The fact of the matter is that in the real world we have MS Windows and Linux from which to choose, generic PC firmware and hardware, specialized and general purpose printers, proprietary hardware, and either open source or proprietary specialized voting software. From this mix, all US voting systems will certainly emerge. We do have the option of specifiying Open Test to supplement the existing proprietary, private, and inscrutible test organizations currently providing certification. Our standards must provide a measure of how well an individual voting system is likely to function, given our understood criteria.
Otherwise, although interesting, speculation about total custom voting systems (Open Source and Open Hardware Designs?) does not seem helpful except in order to highlight what is needed in the real world.
This is my personal and professional opinion, and it does not necessarily reflect the opinions of my employer. Cheers!
-- Dick
Richard C. Johnson, Ph.D.
Applications Architect
Oracle Corporation
631-689-3736