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The name VxWorks is believed to be a pun on the VRTX real-time operating system, at the time created by Ready Systems , now a Mentor Graphics product. In the early 1980s VRTX was a new product and did not work so well. It was 4KB in size and could not be fully used as an operating system. Wind River acquired the rights to resell VRTX with an extension named VxWorks which was workable (including for example a file system and an integrated development environment), so VxWorks most probably mean VRTX now Works. As Wind River anticipated that Ready Systems would cancel the contract, they developed their own kernel and put in VRTX's place, and for this reason the core functionality of VxWorks is suspiciously similar to that of VRTX.

Major features of VxWorks include a fast, multitasking kernel with pre-emptive schedulingScheduling (from schema) is the process of assigning tasks to a set of resources. It is an important concept in many areas such as computing and production processes. In mathematical terms, a scheduling problem is often solved as an optimization problem, and fast interruptIn computer engineering, an interrupt is a signal from a device which typically results in a context switch: that is, the processor sets aside what it's doing and does something else. Digital computers usually provide a way to start software routines in r response, extensive intertask communication s and synchronizationSynchronization is coordination with respect to time. It is an important concept in the following fields: Computer science Physics Telecommunication Cryptography Multimedia Photography Music ( rhythm) Synchronization has several subtly distinct sub-concep facilities, efficient UNIX-compatible memory managementMemory management is the act of managing computer memory. In its simpler forms this involves providing ways to allocate portions of memory to programs at their request and free it back to the system for reuse when no longer needed. Virtual memory systems, multiprocessor facilities, a shellThe shell of an operating system is a program that presents an interface to various operating system functions and services. The shell is so called because it is an outer layer of interface between the user and the innards of the operating system (The ker for user interface, symbolic and sourceSource code (commonly just source or code is any series of statements written in some human-readable computer programming language. In modern programming languages, the source code which constitutes a software program is usually in several text files, but level debugging capabilities, performance monitoring and an I/O file system.

Because VxWorks is generally used in embedded systems, it requires a host workstation for program development. Unlike "native" systems such as UNIX and QNX, VxWorks development is done on a "host" machine running UNIX or Windows, cross-compiling target software to run on various "target" CPU architectures.

The Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity use the VxWorks operating system running on a PowerPC platform. VxWorks is in use in several other spacecraft, and Boeing Commercial Airplanes intends to use the operating system in their new 7E7 airliner.