In the embedded world these systems were on the border land between UNIX and RTOS long before Linux came along and blurred the view. In a VME chassi you typically had a few to loads of deterministic data gathering boards which were aggregating data to a main CPU which also could act on the data and control the machinery through other VME interface boards. The main CPU typically ran a user interface under OS9/UNIX or somethings else, later both Sun and Microsoft (and even Apple right?) tried to own that main CPU board. Sometimes the data was just passed on to a "normal" computer or a PC over ethernet, or to another VME chassi for further processing. These could be huge systems or just a single VME board.
A typical system suitable for VME boards were usually very complex or in too small series to develop a custom board/system. While VME was expensive it still did cut out quite some development costs. VME projects I have been working with as a supplier as far as I remember includes:
- Drill robot for mines with 3D vector projections
- Robot control prototypes
- High sea (waves) compensation system for Hydrofoil boats
- Accellerator rings
- Test equipment for the Arianne rockets
- Sawmills
- Automated manufacturing
- Telephone exchange systems
Sometimes the systems were used for development prototyping only but sometimes they just kept buying crates which was great of course. My part was to among others to write drivers bundled in so called BSP:s for the boards supporting the particular RTOS/OS the customer were using, in our case mostly VRTX and VxWorks. Lots of fun
