July 2002 - Oberon - mailman3.inf.ethz.ch

Re: file system (Ghost in the Machine)
by Antony Tersol 21 Jul '02

21 Jul '02

I didn't think Aubrey was being patronizing; however, the statement: > I expected that anyone who has used PCs for more than a few years > is familiar with the need(s) to organize groups of files and not > mix them at random into a single directory. I see this was an > error on my part. I retract the word "patronizing". seems to indicate a misunderstanding. My interpretation of Aubrey's question was that he was attempting to seperate the low-level organization of the files from the method of access. If a file system has one access method that is congruent to the standard PC hierarchical access, the different underlying structure might allow other, more powerful and flexible access methods. > If you do NOT maintain low-level compatibility your OS will never > gain broad support, will be forgotten, and of no consequence. PCs also used to restrict names to the 8.3 convention. Must an acceptable Oberon OS be forever slave to PC strictures? > Low level routines should be modular/replaceable when the tides > of change are upon us. If only MS maintained such laudable practices. Are the tides you speak of those created by the gravitational forces of the moon-sun of MS? Whatever the filesystem, it serves to "organize groups of files and not mix them at random" on a physical hard-drive. The files in a subdirectory are associated only by virtue of entries in a directory structure. The MS filesystem is a hierarchical database. And my experience with Windows shows me that the existing "Low level access to the file system imposes" "speed penalties" and "imposes restrictions further along the way that" "limit options available to application programmers who want to implement a different type of access not compatible with" Microsoft "routines". > "Database" and "power" seldom belong in the same sentence or even > the same paragraph. Databases would not enjoy their success if they did not offer significant benefits to the user. Relational and object databases are worthy of consideration as alternatives to the traditional hierarchical filesystem. Other structuring methods offer the possibility of unifying the access to information across the local-machine/network/internet boundaries. Rather then a priori deciding on a particular filesystem (or any other OS component), it might be more beneficial to focus on "needs" and "wishes". In other words, instead of saying "I must have a files system with nestable subdirectories", one might define the ways in which one wishes to view and access file collections. Rather then restricting all users to the lowest common denominator, a different, more powerful file system might be made capable of accessing legacy systems, while offering enhanced capabilities in its native structure. (In other words, one might choose the "Standard MS View" as one's default, and see nested folders with files inside, while someone else might choose differently). BTW, I have over 20 years working with various computer systems (not just PCs - I assume you are conforming to the convention that PCs refer to Intel-compatible chipsets with MS OSs). > Message: 2 > To: "OBERON SYSTEM 3" <oberon(a)inf.ethz.ch> > From: "Ghost in the Machine" <cangelich(a)famvid.com> > Date: (No, or invalid, date.) > Subject: [Oberon] Re: file system > Reply-To: oberon(a)inf.ethz.ch > > Message: 1 > From: mcintosh(a)vima.austin.tx.us > Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 08:01:55 -0500 (CDT) > To: oberon(a)inf.ethz.ch > Subject: [Oberon] Re: Commercializing Oberon: User Needs, subdirectories > Reply-To: oberon(a)inf.ethz.ch > > --8<--cut > > > For reasons too bizaare to be sensible, I have thought about getting > > a second Ph.D., this time in computer science. > > I don't have a Ph.D. I have over 20 years working with various PCs. > > --8<--cut > > > If, however, I require low level compatibility with a legacy data > > structure invented when portable media was 8" wide and held 160 Kb of > > data, my options for innovation are minimal. > > If you do NOT maintain low-level compatibility your OS will never > gain broad support, will be forgotten, and of no consequence. > Low level routines should be modular/replaceable when the tides > of change are upon us. > > No one I know is looking for yet another foreign file system or > partition type to foul up their existing installed (working) > software. > > --8<--cut > > > From this perspective, I view my original question as deliberate, > > clear, important and appropriate to this discussion. > > I expected that anyone who has used PCs for more than a few years > is familiar with the need(s) to organize groups of files and not > mix them at random into a single directory. I see this was an > error on my part. I retract the word "patronizing". > > > Based on the work that I did in making the ISO_9660 compatible file > > system, I envision that a change to the file name scanner to include > > the "/" character in a file name would allow the command in the > > example to execute, and to give the results described, on a "flat" > > file system. Moreover, it would give additional power. > > "Database" and "power" seldom belong in the same sentence or even > the same paragraph. > > > I have some objections to this solution. You may also object to this > > solution. > > > Can you explain why? > > Low level access to the file system imposes fewer speed penalties > and any embedded `database' would impose restrictions further > along the way that would limit options available to application > programmers who want to implement a different type of access not > compatible with `database' routines. > > Unless your, in your vocabulary, database read in blocks of code > then we are diametrically opposed on this. > > Charles.Angelich > > From: "Ghost in the Machine" <cangelich(a)famvid.com> > | > Let me explore the following user interface scenario. > | > > | > 1. A command of the nature > | > System.Directories eMail/Y02/July/* > | > produces list of file names that the user named and saved from email > | > received in July 2002. > | > > | > Is this the sort of thing you are missing? > |=20 > | Don't be patronizing. > |=20 > | I want to be able to separate sets of files into subdirectories > | not clump them all together in one huge directory. MSDOS > | v2.1 had subdirectories - did you notice that? > |=20 > | =20 > > --__--__-- >

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Re: [Oberon] connect to ISP via dialup PPP with BlueBottle, how ?
by muller＠inf.ethz.ch 21 Jul '02

21 Jul '02

wdbh <sequitur(a)sonic.net> wrote: > The months are flying by but I still haven't figured out > how to connect to the internet via dialup PPP to my ISP > with BlueBottle. AFAIK Edgar Schwarz has ported his PPP modules from Native, but I don't think they are in the release yet since there were problems with the serial driver latency. Perhaps Edgar can provide the necessary modules. Edgar, are you here? > LinkDevice="Unknown" > LocalIP="0.0.0.0" > LocalName="localhost" > Domain="sonic.net" > DNS0="208.201.224.11" > DNS1="208.201.224.33" > CacheSize="1000" > APM="0" > > Would someone please tell me what is the simplest way > for me to tell if this is correct or not? Just BTW, if you had ethernet the above would be incorrect. E.g. to set up TCP/IP for a local ethernet with a 3Com 90X card you would set LinkDevice="Aos3Com90x" and LocalIP="192.168.0.1" (or whatever your LAN address is). If you have a LAN with another PC with a modem, you could set up a PPP gateway using Linux or Windows. Or if you have a cable or DSL connection with ethernet, you can connect via that. > If so, what is the difference between the two different Oberons that > appear to be available on the BlueBottle menu. Only the size of the Oberon window. If you look at the Menu.*.XML files you'll see the two are invoked with different size parameters. > I would like to be spending much more time on BlueBottle > but, as a practical matter, I cannot do that unless > I can be connected to the internet while I am running > BlueBottle. While we are on the subject, it would be nice to have a network driver for the ethernet driver emulated by VMware (AMD 79c970 PCnet Lance compatible), since that would allow running Bluebottle with networking on a VMware virtual PC on Linux or Windows. In case someone wants to have a go, the Linux driver is at: drivers/net/lance.c The AMD documentation appears to be at: http://www.amd.com/us-en/Networking/ProductInformation/0,,50_2330_3276_2500… This seems to be for a newer version, the 972. Perhaps AMD will give access to older documentation on request. VMware Inc. may also be able to point to documentation. On the Aos side, the Aos3Com509 and Aos3Com90x modules can server as examples. -- Pieter -- Pieter Muller, Computer Systems Institute, ETH Zurich / MCT Lab, Zurich Native Oberon OS: http://www.oberon.ethz.ch/native/

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Re: [Oberon] Re: USB support & digital camera
by muller＠inf.ethz.ch 21 Jul '02

21 Jul '02

"Peter Easthope" <peter_easthope(a)gulfnet.sd64.bc.ca> wrote: > So when the camera is connected, the UsbStorage > driver is loaded and the camera is mounted on > the filesystem, System.Directory should report the > images as *.jpg (or some other format) files? Ideally, that should happen. > You use the USB drive as portable temporary storage > because the memory in the camera is inadequate? No, my camera only has a slow serial interface, but uses removable SmartMedia flash cards, so I can remove a card and stick it in the SmartMedia reader for fast transfer. But like I said, unfortunately the current UsbStorage driver doesn't recognize my reader. I haven't checked yet if Linux supports it, but if it does, it shouldn't be too difficult to extend the driver. -- Pieter -- Pieter Muller, Computer Systems Institute, ETH Zurich / MCT Lab, Zurich Native Oberon OS: http://www.oberon.ethz.ch/native/

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Re: USB support & digital camera
by Peter Easthope 21 Jul '02

21 Jul '02

Pieter Muller said, pjm> ... camera acts as a standard USB storage device, So when the camera is connected, the UsbStorage driver is loaded and the camera is mounted on the filesystem, System.Directory should report the images as *.jpg (or some other format) files? pjm> I use an Asian no-name compactflash/smartmedia USB drive to transfer my pictures. You use the USB drive as portable temporary storage because the memory in the camera is inadequate? Thanks, Peter E. Peter Lyall Easthope 48.7693d N, 123.3053d W, 30 m http://carnot.pathology.ubc.ca/peter.html

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Re: [Oberon] Re: Oberon digest, Vol 1 #18 - 5 msgs
by muller＠inf.ethz.ch 20 Jul '02

20 Jul '02

"Ghost in the Machine" <cangelich(a)famvid.com> wrote: > Once a program has verified that it's CWD is a new directory (or subdir) The notion of a "current working directory" is useful in command line shell-based user interfaces, when the current directory is always displayed in the command prompt. In windowing interfaces (e.g. Oberon's textual user interface, or MS Windows) a global "current directory" is a bad idea, because the different windows represent different working contexts. If the current directory is somehow bound to the window context, and is made visible, it could be useable. I don't think this would fit in well with Oberon's user interface concepts. Chapter 2 "Basic concepts" of Wirth and Gutknecht's "Project Oberon" book is good background reading on this topic. > > OFSTools.Mount AOS AosFS IDE2#5 ~ > > OFSTools.Mount C FatFS IDE0#1 ~ > > OFSTools.Mount RAM RamFS 512 2048 ~ > > I may have missed the "C" in "CFatFS"? That looks different to me > right now. The "AOS", "C" and "RAM" above are the prefixes under which the file systems are installed in the file name space. So instead of "C" I could use "DOS" and then access a DOS file as "DOS:/filename". > The Native Oberon OS is installed into one large (30 meg) file on my > hard drive. I had the impression that within that file Oberon was using it's > own file structures. Native Oberon has two "native" file systems: the original native file system (NatFS) and a newer file system compatible with Aos (AosFS). Since the new file system supports larger partitions and files it is now the default. > If Native is not Aos what is it? For some background on Aos, see: http://www.oberon.ethz.ch/active/ The system based on Aos was recently renamed to Bluebottle: http://bluebottle.ethz.ch > I understand that you, and others, have other priorities that are of more > importance than Oberon is right now and I agree with your priorities. I'm glad you understand. > I guess I'm a bit surprised that after a decade or so rather than become > more organized Oberon seems to have splintered off into multiple > versions each one at various stages of development. A strength of Oberon is that it is simple and flexible enough to easily adapt to different requirements. That may be the reason for the many independent developments, which can be bewildering for a newcomer. With ETH Oberon we have been shifting slowly to a more distributed development environment, with people outside the ETH contributing and maintaining ports (e.g. Günter Feldmann, Edgar Schwarz, Günter Sawitzki, Peter Matthias, et al.). This is becoming more important now that several "Oberon" PhD students have finished (Erich Oswald, Emil Zeller, Patrik Reali and me) > A suggestion would be to unpack all those MODs into > separate files on the FTP server in a directory for that > purpose, one for each ARC or ZIP so that people like > myself can grab just the MOD they need at the time and > not wrestle with entire archives of source just to fix one > MOD? It would be very inefficient for the various ftp mirrors to transfer all the little files. We are considering better ways to manage the sources (e.g. CVS), which might address this problem also. -- Pieter -- Pieter Muller, Computer Systems Institute, ETH Zurich / MCT Lab, Zurich Native Oberon OS: http://www.oberon.ethz.ch/native/

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Eth S3 native oberon development trajectory.
by cglur＠onwe.co.za 20 Jul '02

20 Jul '02

Related to the ill advised call for dumbing down n-o's cording mouse: Every 11 (or what) years there's a new wave of dreamers who are going to make a lot of money on the stock exchange. The oberon community's waves have a shorter cycle time. BTW what happened to the 'MS *.net for oberon' wave ? That's why I don't look at blue-thing -- yet. Sys 3 Ver2.3.6 was stable and serving me well, when beta came along and everybody was shouting: "jump in, jump in !" When I reported problems I often had no response: denial nor acknowledgememt. As it turned out the new bugs introduced in beta and alpha (released in that order) were mostly 'work-around-able' and worth the improvements and extra facilities. It's nice to be able to find broad general statements to make. Unfortunately computer user interfacing is not a hard science and it seems that particular examples are needed. {BTW this whole thread is not about computing, but about managing oberon's evolution, which is equally soft science.} Someone wants a simple bullet-proofed system, with a basic http-getter. Contradiction of terms. The Web-browser is perhaps the monster that allowed MS to, more than other stuff, capture the market. I guess I.E. is bigger than the complete n-o OS with all aplications ? Someone said do a google search for xyz. Surely any 'basic' http getter must be able to 'do a google search'. {BTW I predict that if google shuts down, the world economy will feel a ripple.} I needed to retrieve some NewsGroup answers to some very important questions that I had posed on some *legal* NewsGroups. This is a typical use of google. And surely your 'basic http-getter' must be able to handle it ? I fetch much http stuff by email, and an email google search showed that I needed to fetch: http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&threadm=\ 06i96tsrumc779ecc8q2mnnlpg31kjc73o%40news.supernews.com&rnum=6&p\ rev=/groups%3Fas_q%3D%26num%3D10%26as_scoring%3Dr%26hl%3Den%26bt\ nG%3DGoogle%2BSearch%26as_epq%3DAdmissible%2Bevidence%2B%3F%2B%2\ 6as_oq%3D%26as_eq%3D%26as_ugroup%3D*legal*%26as_usubject%3D%26as\ _uauthors%3D%26as_umsgid%3D%26lr%3D%26as_drrb%3Dq%26as_qdr%3D%26\ as_mind%3D12%26as_minm%3D5%26as_miny%3D1986%26as_maxd%3D2%26as_m\ axm%3D5%26as_maxy%3D2002 Understandably Desktops.OpenDoc won't handle this long argument. And also when I try to fetch my target from a live google page, it does TRAP 7 Index out of range (PC Native 11.10.2001) HTTPDocs.Request PC = 5056 ... host = "groups.google.com" i = 256 I looked at the source code a week ago and seem to remember that I suspected i = 256 via: NetTools.PathStrLen --> CONST PathStrLen = 256; Investigating this would require firstly finding out if there is a maximum "argument length" specified (by RFC ? is it). I guess that google is open to feedback, so they would not be operating out of spec. - for long. My point is that I and other contributors could put more effort into advancing n-o along it's existing evolutionary path (to hell with bird brain drastic rewrites) if the management existed. The less exciting task of fixing various problems is what is needed, but as it is I'm not going to invest debugging effort in n-o . These tasks have different skill sets: 1. programming, 2. system design, 3. managing a project, 4. designing and managing a self managing cooperative project. Native oberon should be moving to stages 3, 4; which can't be done with stage 1 skills. Perhaps it's time to learn from linux - also if/what mistakes they made ? --- Chris Glur.

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Re: [Oberon] USB support & digital camera, mouse buttons
by muller＠inf.ethz.ch 20 Jul '02

20 Jul '02

peter_easthope(a)gulfnet.sd64.bc.ca wrote: > Small digital cameras are becoming > affordable and most include a USB > cable. USB technology is unfamiliar > to me. Can anyone mention whether > Oberon or Bluebottle can communicate > with a camera thru USB. Basic USB support was implemented for Native Oberon by Christian Plattner in a semester project: http://www.oberon.ethz.ch/usb.html Thomas Frey ported the USB modules to Bluebottle. USB is a very comprehensive standard, and not all devices are automatically supported. Many devices also use proprietary protocols on top of the basic USB link layer. If you are lucky, your camera acts as a standard USB storage device, that will be recognized by the UsbStorage module. See Usb.Tool for more information. I use an Asian no-name compactflash/smartmedia USB drive to transfer my pictures. Unfortunately UsbStorage doesn't currntly recognize this device. -- Pieter -- Pieter Muller, Computer Systems Institute, ETH Zurich / MCT Lab, Zurich Native Oberon OS: http://www.oberon.ethz.ch/native/

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Oberon file names
by muller＠inf.ethz.ch 20 Jul '02

20 Jul '02

mcintosh(a)vima.austin.tx.us wrote: > For reasons too bizaare to be sensible, I have thought about getting > a second Ph.D., this time in computer science. One dissertation > topic that I have considered is to embed a database deep into the > system and explore the implications. In Oberon, the simple act of > embedding a "Text," which is an abstract structure composed of files, > deep into the operating system has been profound. I think that the > database dissertation topic would be very interesting. Sounds interesting! > Based on the work that I did in making the ISO_9660 compatible file > system, I envision that a change to the file name scanner to include > the "/" character in a file name would allow the command in the > example to execute, and to give the results described, on a "flat" > file system. Moreover, it would give additional power. "/" characters are indeed allowed in file names in current ETH Oberon versions. I think this was first done on the Windows and Unix ports, but Native Oberon has also supported since the installable file systems were implemented. Changing the Texts.Name token is not ideal, because it can break existing programs. We have also been changing commands that accept file names so that they accept quoted strings (e.g. "/dir/some name"). This is a more general and safer approach. Not all commands have been updated yet. In most commands this is simply a case of changing: IF s.class = Texts.Name THEN to IF s.class IN {Texts.Name, Texts.String} THEN -- Pieter -- Pieter Muller, Computer Systems Institute, ETH Zurich / MCT Lab, Zurich Native Oberon OS: http://www.oberon.ethz.ch/native/

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Booting from CD
by muller＠inf.ethz.ch 20 Jul '02

20 Jul '02

mcintosh(a)vima.austin.tx.us wrote: > One issue here is "privilege" to reboot the machine. The current > Oberon architecture allows one CD that addresses both > scenarios. Bluebottle perfects this technology in the few files > no.exe + aoside.bin and the bootloader. Bluebottle and Native handle booting from CD the same way, using floppy emulation. noboot.exe and DOS is not involved. > In a chemistry lab setting, where the faculty have control over the > computers, the reboot solution may be universally acceptable. At the ETH (and probably at many other Universities), Lab PCs are configured to disallow booting from removable media. From their viewpoint this makes sense since booting another system on the machine gives you complete control over it, and they don't like that :-) -- Pieter -- Pieter Muller, Computer Systems Institute, ETH Zurich / MCT Lab, Zurich Native Oberon OS: http://www.oberon.ethz.ch/native/

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Re (2): [Oberon] 3 Buttons to 2
by muller＠inf.ethz.ch 20 Jul '02

20 Jul '02

Felix Friedrich <friedrich(a)gsf.de> wrote: > Actually it was not really me, who changed the response of the mouse > buttons but it is contained in ETH native Oberon for Windows. As far as I > understood, Emil Zeller has done - at least part of - the job. The history of this from my viewpoint: Windows Oberon was the first to address the 3-button mouse issue. Emil (or maybe already Hannes?) changed the Windows Input module (or a lower-level Windows-specific module?) that basically checked the gadget under the cursor and acted differently depending on that. When Bernhard Egger was making the "Programming for Dummies" book distribution (see http://www.oberon.ethz.ch/dummies/) we looked for a better solution and saw that changing all the basic user-interface objects for the two-button case was not that much trouble. http://www.oberon.ethz.ch/native/WebBeta.html shows this change was done on 24.11.00. (BTW If a change in this page or WebAlpha.html does not have a name tag (prk, ejz, be, etc.) on it, it was made by me). Emil and Günter then ported this to the Windows and Unix versions. http://www.oberon.ethz.ch/mouse.html documents that F8 can be used to toggle the new behaviour on and off. Peter Easthope mentions this is also documented in Oberon-0. peter_easthope(a)gulfnet.sd64.bc.ca wrote: > I wonder whether the command > functionality of ML,ML can be turned > off permanently. The mouse configur > -ation viewer in Oberon0 mentions > that F8 toggles this capability but > it appears not to remain off in the > fully installed alpha 23.06.2002. > I don't see the question mentioned > in configuration strings. What is apparently not documented anywhere is that in Native Oberon you can turn it off permanently and revert to the old operation by setting config string "MB=3" (mouse buttons = 3). André, could you please document this? -- Pieter -- Pieter Muller, Computer Systems Institute, ETH Zurich / MCT Lab, Zurich Native Oberon OS: http://www.oberon.ethz.ch/native/

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