Quote:
Originally Posted by eschwartz
I would argue that a smartphone or tablet has far more similarity to a PC than to an embedded microcontroller (  where did you pull that ridiculous comparison from, if you want to talk about "disingenuous")... or even a single-use embedded system.
Don't you own a Surface tablet? Is that an embedded device, just because it uses a mobile form factor?
What, precisely, is your inscrutable determining factor between "general-purpose OS" and "dedicated, invisible-to-the-user"?
Because it sounds like your definition of "embedded device" refers more to user knowledge than device design; I could easily make the case that a Windows 8 desktop rig is an embedded device according to what you just said. G-d knows, a lot of people wouldn't be able to tell the difference.  |
I separate the two by asking the question "does the user need to know what operating system the device is running in order to make effective use of it?" For a Kindle eInk reader or a washing machine the answer is "no"; I doubt that 1 in 100 Kindle owners know that it runs Linux, and that even fewer give a damn. For a PC, the answer is "yes"; you need to know what o/s it's running to make effective use of it.