AVR-Chat

>
>> How exactly do you "send" an event to a task?
>
>There is an ECROS function to do this.

That didn't really illuminate much for me. :)

>In ECROS, you use a printf-like function specifying the UART stream 
>as the destination. This returns "immediately", having stored the 
>output text in a buffer. Interrupts move the text out of the buffer 
>to the UART while you go about something else. The idea is that you 
>don't have to worry about all the stuff you list.

Ok, that's very similar to what I do, I try to decouple the tasks as much as possible.
What happens when the message is larger than the space in the target buffer?
I have a function that returns the chars free in a buffer, but of course it's possible to get stuck with a 10 char message, and a 9 char buffer.  At the moment, I don't have an elegant handler for that. 

>If the point of your message is to take issue with my claim that it 
>is not necessary to poll, then I give up. You win. It is possible to 
>define polling such that polling is necessary. I don't care how; 
>picking at terminology is not interesting to me.

Not at all!  
I'm just not used to the terminology that you're using, and trying to compare it to what I do know.