Developing own applications on netSCRIPT supported targets with a Lua script

netSCRIPT is based on the very popular scripting language Lua, freely available at www.lua.org. Lua appeared on the market 1993 the first time. With its openness in accordance with the General Public principle, its renowned references (Game World of Worldcraft) and the right of a cost-neutral usage, Hilscher has given preference to Lua instead of a self-programmed, proprietary programmable solution. The small size of the language interpreter with simultaneously high processing speed makes Lua a unique instrument for implementing additional functions for exactly those embedded applications Hilscher target devices are addressed to.

Lua scripts are running not in a direct context of the underlying operating system but executed in an interpreter environment. This has the advantage that a programmer does neither has to bother about memory resource management nor system crashes he could produce. His script is encapsulated behind the save interpreter logic. netSCRIPT compared to raw Lua is extended by 15 to 20 additional Hilscher specific functions allowing the access of software interfaces a Hilscher target system is typically equipped with. A serial port is one of those interfaces that can be programmed and controlled. Another interface is the shared memory area Hilschers protocol stacks are using to communicate with their application respectively the "outside" world.

Meanwhile netSCRIPT is part of all netTAP 100 Gateway firmwares.