This version of this document is no longer maintained. For the latest documentation, see http://www.qnx.com/developers/docs.

About This Guide

This chapter includes:

Welcome to the QNX Software Development Platform
What's in this guide?
Typographical conventions

Welcome to the QNX Software Development Platform

Thank you for choosing the QNX Software Development Platform. It includes everything you need to build and maintain your QNX Neutrino-based embedded system:

the QNX Momentics Tool Suite, a comprehensive set of integrated development tools, lots of in-depth documentation, as well as powerful diagnostics and optimization tools for your system once it's up and running on your target.
QNX Neutrino RTOS

Board support packages (BSPs), driver development kits (DDKs), and QNX Aviage middleware packages are available separately; you can download them from our website, http://www.qnx.com/.

Trusted and proven in countless embedded systems, QNX Neutrino has a growing reputation as the world's most reliable RTOS. We now invite you to explore the advanced tools that the QNX Momentics Tool Suite adds to QNX Neutrino.

The Big Picture

QNX Momentics is the development environment on your host for the QNX Neutrino RTOS running on your target.

What's in this guide?

This guide is intended to introduce you to the QNX Momentics Tool Suite and help you start developing applications for QNX Neutrino. This guide is organized around these main topics:

The following table may help you quickly find information in this guide:

To:	Go to:
See a list of this product's components	“QNX Momentics at a glance” in What is QNX Momentics?
Understand the license agreement	“A word about licensing” in What is QNX Momentics?
Use a virtual machine	“Getting started before you have your target” in What is QNX Momentics?
Install QNX Momentics on your host machine or remove it	“Installing and removing QNX Momentics” in Getting Started
Find out where components are installed on your host machine	“What did I just install?” in Getting Started
Upgrade your software	“Upgrading your software” in Getting Started
Run the QNX Neutrino RTOS on a target machine	“Running QNX Neutrino on a target machine” in Getting Started
Get started with the documentation	How to Get Help
Get technical support	How to Get Help
Find the meaning of terms used in QNX documentation	Glossary
Look up a word in this guide's keyword index	Index

Typographical conventions

Throughout this manual, we use certain typographical conventions to distinguish technical terms. In general, the conventions we use conform to those found in IEEE POSIX publications. The following table summarizes our conventions:

Reference	Example
Code examples	`if( stream == NULL )`
Command options	`-lR`
Commands	`make`
Environment variables	PATH
File and pathnames	`/dev/null`
Function names	exit()
Keyboard chords	Ctrl-Alt-Delete
Keyboard input	`something you type`
Keyboard keys	Enter
Program output	`login:`
Programming constants	NULL
Programming data types	`unsigned short`
Programming literals	`0xFF`, `"message string"`
Variable names	stdin
User-interface components	Cancel

We use an arrow (→) in directions for accessing menu items, like this:

You'll find the Other... menu item under Perspective-->Show View.

We use notes, cautions, and warnings to highlight important messages:

Notes point out something important or useful.

Cautions tell you about commands or procedures that may have unwanted or undesirable side effects.

Warnings tell you about commands or procedures that could be dangerous to your files, your hardware, or even yourself.

Note to Windows users

In our documentation, we use a forward slash (/) as a delimiter in all pathnames, including those pointing to Windows files.

We also generally follow POSIX/UNIX filesystem conventions.

Navigation buttons

At the top and bottom of our HTML docs, you'll see some or all of these buttons:

Use this button:	To move:
	To the previous part of the document.
	“Up” in the document: In a prose book, this typically takes you to About This Guide. In a reference book, it takes you to the listing of items that start with a given letter. For example, if you're looking at the docs for abs(), this button takes you to the listing of the functions that start with `A`.
	To the keyword index.
	To the next part of the document.