So far, performance measures for real time systems did not receive much att
ention. An assessment of the few existing benchmarking methods for real tim
e systems will reveal that they are highly inappropriate. Taking a closer l
ook into the fundamental issues of real time systems it will become clear,
that for hard real time systems qualitative characteristics are much more i
mportant than quantitative measures. The major qualitative performance crit
eria are compiled. Systems fulfiling the qualitative aspects may then be co
mpared on the basis of costs.