Article describes Ubicom IP3023 processor. It appears to have built-in Ethernet interface, USB controller, PCI and ISA bus interfaces, PCMCIA slot, synchronous DRAM controller, set of UARTs, etc., but does it all by software. Embedded.com.
C, most popular of all embedded languages, may be fun and efficient, but is a horrible language, with little to help make correct programs; a disaster, bizarre hodgepodge meant to give far too much control over computer. [Embedded.com]
Using several features of the language, this article presents a framework for resource allocation which is temporally deterministic, provides for callback, provides memory pools, and can provide for deadlock prevention.