gRMA Usage Guide

gRMA is a system for doing Rate Monotonic Analysis of real time systems. It consists of a GUI that allows you to specify a real-time system and an interface to seeing the results of timing analysis.

How do you get started? Click on ``File'' and select ``New System''. Give your system a name when prompted - ``Test System'' would be fine.

Now you'll see the Task List screen, with no tasks listed. At the bottom of the screen is a ``New Task'' button. Click that, and you'll bring up the Task Editor showing an empty task. If the terms in the Task Editor aren't familar to you, now would be a good time to click on one of the '?' buttons in the Task Editor and read the Task Editor documentation. Be sure to give each task you create a different value for the priority field. Once you've done that, fill in some values and click 'Ok'.

Now click on the 'View' menu at the top the screen. This menu shows you a list of different screens that you can use to manipulate and analyze your system.

Go to the ``Resource List'' and create a new resource. You'll find that the Resource List functions identically to the Task List.

Now go to the ``Resource Usage Layout'' using the 'View' menu. On this screen you'll see several objects - white tasks and black resources. You can move them around by right-clicking and dragging the mouse. You can draw resource-usage lines from tasks to resources using the left mouse button. You can delete resource usage lines by right-clicking on the line. This is how you assign a resource to a task. When you double-click on an object you get the editor appropriate to the task.

Finally, go to the ``Timing Analysis'' screen using the 'View' menu. Here you'll find out if the system you've specified can be garaunteed to meet its deadlines. To find out why the anaylzer has decided your system was schedulable or not, click on the ``Explain Results'' button at the bottom of the screen. This will bring up a text box with information on the analysis.

Try adding more tasks and more resources, createing more complex systems. You can save and load your systems between sessions using the 'File' menu.

For more information see the other help files available from the Help menu.