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

Re: [Oberon] need some help for system 3 gadgets
by muller＠inf.ethz.ch 20 Jul '02

20 Jul '02

> Can anybody give me a pointer, where I can read about linking model > to visual gadget(s) in system 3? Model gadgets itself is not visual, and > I can't find it in container and set reference. Now I can set > reference to model, when add it to existing (selected)visual gadget, > but have difficulties change link - I can't see where model gadget is, > only in RefFrame in Columbus ( and where is model without any link > -deleted?). Is another way to add model, see it and > set reference from visual? The Oberon Companion book by Fischer and Marais should be a good start. See Book.Tool in your Oberon installation, or http://www.oberon.ethz.ch/books.html -- 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: mouse buttons
by peter_easthope＠gulfnet.sd64.bc.ca 20 Jul '02

20 Jul '02

Chris & others, cg> CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS !?! The F8 key is mentioned in Oberon0 2001.10.11 also ... so it is not new to 2002.06.23. cg> Although I kept 'yanking the chain' I got no response - from you people. Sorry I couldn't answer your question sooner; Installed the alpha 2002.06.23 only last weekend. Your postings about ML,ML some weeks back gave impetus to notice the mention of F8 in the mouse configuration viewer. A daily schedule for a few minutes of reading in the ETH Web site and occasionally in a Mod file seems helpful. Installing the alpha release in a spare partition is also a good exercise. Keeping up with evolution isn't easy, said the grasshopper. =8~) cg> F8 toggle also removes the icon ... So it does! Well, seems I can survive using F8 rather than turn off ML,ML permanently. cg> How would you feel to find out that you'd been driving for the last 2 years with the hand break on !? I must have had the emergency brake on since conception or shortly thereafter. Incidently, thanks for the tip about the HTML module. It built my Web site. Regards, Peter E. Peter Easthope http://carnot.pathology.ubc.ca/

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USB support & digital camera, mouse buttons
by peter_easthope＠gulfnet.sd64.bc.ca 20 Jul '02

20 Jul '02

Mom, Shelley, Lyle, In case anyone is wondering, I plan to travel to Pender tomorrow, Saturday, morning. The ship is scheduled to dock about 11:00 =/- an hour. The trike is at Mike Sketch's and with a stop at the Driftwood I should be home between 2:00 and 3:00. Peter Peter Easthope http://carnot.pathology.ubc.ca/

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Re. [Oberon] USB support & digital camera, mouse buttons
by cglur＠onwe.co.za 19 Jul '02

19 Jul '02

Peter Easthope 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. > I have no knowledge of USB, except to guess that it is a standard protocol like RS232, and therefore since n-o alpha supports Ubs, it will handle a camera like anything else. The Usb.Tool is big, and Watson.ShowDef Usb.Obj is more 'complicated' than Watson.ShowDef V24.Obj 's output. It seems that with Usb you can/must mess with interrupts ? If so, it adds a nasty level of complication. If not you can test/exercise it like the (non-mouse-used) ser-port. Just put an extra mouse on the non-mouse-used ser-port and write a few lines of code to initialise and read the ser-port and trace it via Out.Hex. I've got some code that I used to investigate a voice modem if you need a hand up. You shouldn't try writing video drivers before doing simpler experiments. Use successive refinement. After you've done RS232 and UBS 'experiments' you will better cope with a video driver. *********************************** > 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. CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS !?! The good news: it immediately removes a problem that I've repeatedly complained about. The bad news: I can't expect to get simple answers from this mailing list, nor c.l.o. Subconciously, I couldn't believe that the MS-aping modification had been forced on us, with out an escape. Although I kept 'yanking the chain' I got no response - from you people. Related to this matter: the F8 toggle also removes the icon in the 'Desktops.OpenDoc type' viewers, allowing more of the nameplate to be viewable, but still the [Store] button is not accessible in the user-track. A [Grow] is needed and (as Peter Easthope=the only other person acknowledges - as I remember ?) this causes a crash for fetched *.htm(l) viewers. Again I can't believe that the alpha design makes the [Store] button inaccesable without a [Grow]. Has this also got a secret key ? How would you feel to find out that you'd been driving for the last 2 years with the hand break on !? -- Chris Glur.

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Next release (was: Re: Oberon digest, Vol 1 #18 - 5 msgs)
by Bernhard Treutwein 19 Jul '02

19 Jul '02

... > > This shows how outdated the 2.3.6 release is. I plan to start > working on a new release after my PhD exam at the end of the month. > really good news ... -- Bernhard Treutwein BdT(a)wildwein.de (home) Bernhard.Treutwein(a)verwaltung.uni-muenchen.de (work)

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USB support & digital camera, mouse buttons
by peter_easthope＠gulfnet.sd64.bc.ca 19 Jul '02

19 Jul '02

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. 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. Thanks, Peter E. Peter Easthope http://carnot.pathology.ubc.ca/

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Re: Commercializing Oberon: User Needs, subdirectories
by mcintosh＠vima.austin.tx.us 19 Jul '02

19 Jul '02

I write under my own name to an international readership who speak English as a second language. I try to be clear and direct, and to write with deliberation when I post. I know that I write long posts, but otherwise I think I merit good reputation. 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. If I do implement the file directory as one factory relation in a system wide, user extensible database, I gain a tremendous amount of power in the OS. If the file entities on the disk have a many-to-many relationship to the directory, I gain a tremendous amount of power in the user's hands. 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. It is probable that any research project I pursue in this area would be Oberon based. If Danforth's project becomes cohesive, it is possible that it would be the base for the project.

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Installable file systems and subdirectories
by muller＠inf.ethz.ch 19 Jul '02

19 Jul '02

Antony Tersol <tony(a)appliedsolarenergy.com> wrote: > If NO continues with no subdirectories, then hierarchical views are > necessary. 1. Native Oberon (post 2.3.6) has installable file systems (see OFS.Tool). E.g. I use the following commands to access my Aos and FAT partitions and create a non-persistent ramdisk volume: OFSTools.Mount AOS AosFS IDE2#5 ~ OFSTools.Mount C FatFS IDE0#1 ~ OFSTools.Mount RAM RamFS 512 2048 ~ System.Watch (or OFSTools.Watch) shows the currently mounted file systems and their search order. Partitions.Show displays all disk partitions and their types. 2. Subdirectories can be used on file systems that support them (the default Native and Aos file systems don't). E.g. after the above commands, I can execute: Desktops.OpenDoc AOS:Oberon.Text EditTools.OpenAscii C:/oberon/aos.par System.CopyFiles RAM:Temp.Bin => C:/oberon/aos.bin ~ > This topic was discussed in a thread back in '99: Installable file systems were added to Native on 27.09.99, see: http://www.oberon.ethz.ch/native/WebBeta.html Complete FAT support (FAT32 and long file names) was added on 24.04.01, see: http://www.oberon.ethz.ch/native/WebAlpha.html This shows how outdated the 2.3.6 release is. I plan to start working on a new release after my PhD exam at the end of the month. -- 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: Commercializing Oberon: User Needs, subdirectories
by Antony Tersol 18 Jul '02

18 Jul '02

If NO continues with no subdirectories, then hierarchical views are necessary. An interesting question is whether to have a fixed hierarchical view that is constrained by a single relationship structure (parent-children) or whether to have dynamic views that can be configured. This topic was discussed in a thread back in '99: http://groups.google.com/groups?q=comp.lang.oberon+directory+NO&btnG=Google… If the link doesn't work, do a search at groups.google.com : "comp.lang.oberon directory NO" In Message: 2 cangelich(a)famvid.com wrote >Having no subdirectories is really not ever going to be acceptable >for daily long term use of Oberon.

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Re: [Oberon] Commercializing Oberon: User Needs
by Antony Tersol 17 Jul '02

17 Jul '02

Some additional candidate user needs: continuing from Aubrey's 13: 14. I want to be able to easily work collaboratively with others, who may be using the same computer, the same network, or be connected by the internet. 15. I want a suite of cooperating programs that, installed on a network, will gather data (from instruments, computers, anything interfacable to a computer or PDA) and make that data (and analysis of same) available via the network. 16. I want an environment that allows me to author on a PC and deliver applications and content on resource-constrained devices (such as PDA's and cell phones, strongArm processor 15 is perhaps a generalization of Aubrey's #4 ("I want a program that displays the status of my network operations center with hundreds of users, in a easy to comprehend and navigate manner.") 14 shares some commonality with #9 (I want an electronic classroom ... groupware support). Having worked for several years with a company that was targeting the college and corporate e-learning markets, I support #9, but would add (based on my teaching experience) that there is a significant market in support for the traditional classroom that requires many of the same functionalities as the electronic classroom. Both electronic and traditional educators would benefit from increased collaboration with their peers that leveraged their skills and work. Consider, for example a testing module that offered a repository of exam questions and answers with appropriate meta-tags, which allowed user contributions, comments and rating, and the capability to create, administer and grade custom exams. Even the (relatively simple) ability to create an exam to be given and graded the old-fashioned way on paper would save instructors lots of time. Why should each of 1000 physics instructors write 100 questions each when contributing 10 could gain them access to 10,000? Antony

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