MOSAIC

What is MOSAICA?

MOSAICA is an active programming framework that is being developed for rapid and robust embedded systems software design.

It is an acronym for Message Object Signal And Information Control Architecture and was developed by Peter Crill over a three year period based on his 25 years of experience in how to do and how not do embedded systems design.

It is written in C++ and can run on any microprocessor or any microcomputer for which there is a C++ compiler. It is operating system independent, compiled, not interpreted, and does not require a runtime package. Under MOSAICA, the entire embedded program is written as a collection of interconnected “plug and play” message objects.

Each MOSAICA message object has an update routine, and to run the entire system, all the program has to do is ask the final output object to update itself. All upstream objects are called and updated automatically. Adding or changing system capabilities is simply a matter of cutting a link and placing the new object there. The object and its functions are never explicitly called, everything is automatic. MOSAICA objects even know how to serialize themselves to and from non-volatile memory.

Only the first input and final output objects are hardware dependent. When running the system on a different platform, all that is required is to modify the hardware specific input or output object at the extreme end of the MOSAICA framework to access the specific connected I/O. A MOSAICA system will run identically on, for example, either your hardware or a PC.

It is important to remember that MOSAICA is more than just the messaging objects. It is a complete programming framework. It contains Configuration Objects, Command Objects and descendant Serial and Console command processors. It also contains many other features such as a text based window system. This screen input/output system is designed so that non-programmers can define, create and manage the screens presented to the user.

Unit configuration is provided by special switching message objects, so that each switch knows how to configure itself for a specific product setting. The framework specifies that all objects know how to set themselves up for any product setting.

The entire MOSAICA framework is designed to make embedded programs extremely versatile, quick to implement, robust in operation and easy to modify and maintain.

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