Uploaded October 2025 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
"Maybe you’ve blinked your first LED and now want to blink a second LED at a different rate; you need an RTOS ("real-time operating system"), right? Or maybe you’re designing the next great IoT product that talks to a server and reads from sensors and has a display; you definitely need an RTOS, right? Wrong! Using a preemptive RTOS can help make a system schedulable (i.e. help all of its tasks meet their deadlines) but it comes at a cost: "concurrently" running tasks can interact in unforeseen ways that cause system failures, that dreaded class of errors known as "race conditions". In part, this is because humans have difficulty thinking about things that happen concurrently. Using the venerable superloop can help avoid this problem entirely and, in some cases, it can actually make a system work that wouldn’t work at all using an RTOS! Additionally, a "superloop" style scheduler has the benefit of being simple enough for you to write yourself in a few dozen lines of code.
If you’re unfamiliar with terms like "deadlines", "schedulability", or "worst-case response time", then I would argue you are almost definitely using an RTOS prematurely! If you are familiar with those terms, allow me to show you a few ways to improve the superloop that bring its performance nearly on par with an RTOS, with no concern about race conditions.
*About the Speaker*
Nathan Jones is an active-duty Army officer whose passion is learning about, developing, and teaching embedded systems.
*About Teardown*
Teardown is a yearly event hosted by Crowd Supply that draws hackers, makers, and engineers from across the US (and the world) to meet together in Portland, Oregon. Teardown is about the practice of hardware: prototyping, manufacturing, testing, disassembling, and circumventing, all while having fun. Teardown attendees can expect lively talks, demos, art installations, hands-on workshops, fiendish puzzles, and lots of good food. Check it out! crowdsupply.com/teardown
*About Crowd Supply*
Crowd Supply is the crowdfunding platform of choice for engineers, hackers, designers, and idealists. We help them with the funding and support they need to deliver respectful, thoughtfully crafted, open source hardware to their delighted backers. Come see what our creators are making: https://www.crowdsupply.com!
YouTube: youtube.com/@crowd_supply
Instagram: instagram.com/crowdsupply
Discord: discord.com/invite/7p5huQ
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/crowdsupply
Mastodon: hachyderm.io/@crowdsupply
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/crowdsupply.bsky.social
#opensourcehardware #hardwarehacking #opensource #hardware #teardown #maker #hacker #electronics #crowdsupply #crowdfunding #manufacturing #rtos
"Maybe you’ve blinked your first LED and now want to blink a second LED at a different rate; you need an RTOS ("real-time operating system"), right? Or maybe you’re designing the next great IoT product that talks to a server and reads from sensors and has a display; you definitely need an RTOS, right? Wrong! Using a preemptive RTOS can help make a system schedulable (i.e. help all of its tasks meet their deadlines) but it comes at a cost: "concurrently" running tasks can interact in unforeseen ways that cause system failures, that dreaded class of errors known as "race conditions". In part, this is because humans have difficulty thinking about things that happen concurrently. Using the venerable superloop can help avoid this problem entirely and, in some cases, it can actually make a system work that wouldn’t work at all using an RTOS! Additionally, a "superloop" style scheduler has the benefit of being simple enough for you to write yourself in a few dozen lines of code.
If you’re unfamiliar with terms like "deadlines", "schedulability", or "worst-case response time", then I would argue you are almost definitely using an RTOS prematurely! If you are familiar with those terms, allow me to show you a few ways to improve the superloop that bring its performance nearly on par with an RTOS, with no concern about race conditions.
*About the Speaker*
Nathan Jones is an active-duty Army officer whose passion is learning about, developing, and teaching embedded systems.
*About Teardown*
Teardown is a yearly event hosted by Crowd Supply that draws hackers, makers, and engineers from across the US (and the world) to meet together in Portland, Oregon. Teardown is about the practice of hardware: prototyping, manufacturing, testing, disassembling, and circumventing, all while having fun. Teardown attendees can expect lively talks, demos, art installations, hands-on workshops, fiendish puzzles, and lots of good food. Check it out! crowdsupply.com/teardown
*About Crowd Supply*
Crowd Supply is the crowdfunding platform of choice for engineers, hackers, designers, and idealists. We help them with the funding and support they need to deliver respectful, thoughtfully crafted, open source hardware to their delighted backers. Come see what our creators are making: https://www.crowdsupply.com!
YouTube: youtube.com/@crowd_supply
Instagram: instagram.com/crowdsupply
Discord: discord.com/invite/7p5huQ
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/crowdsupply
Mastodon: hachyderm.io/@crowdsupply
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/crowdsupply.bsky.social
#opensourcehardware #hardwarehacking #opensource #hardware #teardown #maker #hacker #electronics #crowdsupply #crowdfunding #manufacturing #rtos
