Reply To: Hard/soft realtime

Prior to finding this topic, I asked a question (under topic execution) about the Mill’s behavior when the maximum number of belt IDs is exhausted, e.g. by a deeply nested sequence of calls. I assumed that some sort of internal-state spill/restore is needed, and Will_Edwards replied that this sort of internal-state spill is handled by the spiller and is both automatic and lazy.

For HRT, it’s important to know the time cost for such digressions, especially if there’s limited ability to monitor and/or control when they happen. What can you tell us about the behavior for “recycling” the finite number of Belt IDs and how this will effect the Mill’s real-time performance? Does the architecture permit the programmer to check how empty/full this resource is?