a classical trade-off between flexibility and complexity
(which is closely related to costs) exists: One extreme are
measuring devices built for a dedicated purpose, simple
but rugged, operating in hard real-time, typically low-cost
in pure hardware but affording a large amount of time for
design and development. The other extreme is a standard
PC equipped only with a minimum of input/output
hardware and using a standard operating system thus only
enabling soft real-time operation.