June 2005 - Oberon - mailman3.inf.ethz.ch

Oberon Database
by Dan Parnete 19 Sep '05

19 Sep '05

Hello, I have read this list archives, the documentation inside the distributions, some extra found on the web and I understood. Database is a Tabu word in this community, and is better to not talk about. There is no trace in any distribution (excluding the commercial BlackBox) and the new Bluebottle project doesn't intend to implement one. Ok. It's a choice of live. But don't tell me none of you never needed to put some data altogether. I can't believe nobody extended at list the Library code to more flexible collections management. I saw some database projects started long time ago. Where are this implementations? In other words: if I need a database, have I write it myself? Dan

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The School of Niklaus Wirth - The Art of Simplicity
by Treutwein Bernhard 29 Jun '05

29 Jun '05

The book The School of Niklaus Wirth - The Art of Simplicity by "Laszlo Böszörmenyi, Jürg Gutknecht, Gustav Pomberger" is currently available for only EUR 4,95 (approx. 6 US $) plus S&H here: http://www.terrashop.de/55860723/artikel.php It has been published with two ISBNs 1. 1558607234 by Morgan Kaufmann 2. 3932588851 by dpunkt Apparently dpunkt has cleaned ist program ... -- Bernhard Treutwein

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Re (2): [Oberon] Flash drives
by shark＠gulfnet.sd64.bc.ca 29 Jun '05

29 Jun '05

Doug, dd> I was musing on what consequence this would have on "disk partitions" > since there are no cylinders for flash drives. Eventually EEPROM storage might be available with addressing similar to RAM. Advantages? - A simple linear address, without disk emulation, will allow more efficient access. - Allocation of just the storage needed for a file will avoid wasting space when the file does not end at the end of the last block. - Garbage collection algorithms will be very similar to those from RAM. Adapting applications to load a file from an EEPROM rather than a disk will need work. (Simplification!) dd> What are the consequences for multiple operating systems residing on the > same flash memory? http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/multiboot/ mentions "... load the OS image from a variety of sources, including floppy disk, hard disk, and across a network." The EEPROM is not mentioned yet ... but USB memory acts just as a disk. That should be sufficient for now. Regards, ... Peter E. Desktops.OpenDoc http://carnot.pathology.ubc.ca/

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Re: [Oberon] Flash drives
by easlab＠absamail.co.za 27 Jun '05

27 Jun '05

Douglas G. Danforth wrote: > > Folks, > > > > "Flash-based drives possible for Apple laptops" is a heading in a recent > > article. > > > > I was musing on what consequence this would have on "disk partitions" > > since there are no cylinders for flash drives. Which makes me ask, "how > > dependent is the installation of Bluebottle on the partition concept?" > > > > What are the consequences for multiple operating systems residing on the > > same flash memory? > > > > -Doug > > Thomas wrote: > The flash-based IDE drives work transparently with Bluebottle. With > modern drives, the Cylinder Head Sector (CHS) addressing is only used > for backward compatibility of the boot process. > Once the system is running (and, if the BIOS allows it, already in the > boot loader) blocknumbers are used for addressing. Bluebottle also works > with CF (Compact Flash) cards or USB flash sticks. In both cases there > are no physical cylinders, heads or sectors there. The partition table > addresses the blocks of the device by specifying virtual cylinders heads > and sectors that are then by the driver/bios converted to blocknumbers. > > There are no new consequences for multiple operating systems. At least > not with the flash-based Samsung drives that are currently discussed in > the articles. > http://www.samsung.com/PressCenter/PressRelease/PressReleas\ > e.asp?seq 050523_0000123980 > > --Thomas Making the right design decisions, so that when technology changes, you haven't painted yourself into a corner.....? I guess instead of translating CHS to LBA, it's just blocknumbers to LBA ? Re. partitions: like any woman will tell you: "you can't have too many cupboards". The extra layer of clasification [via partitions] really removed a serious weaknes of n-o's file system, in a neat way. == Chris Glur.

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LNO share screen with linux/pfdViewer ?
by easlab＠absamail.co.za 26 Jun '05

26 Jun '05

Since nothing is superior to n-o for reading/marking/analysing text; and I've only now realised that n-o's fonts for math & Greek & 'make your own', also allows the same power for *.pdf files which don't reduce to ascii. Because n-o effectively gives you a 'magic-pen' which allows you to instantly change font & colour of text stretches to bring out the structure/meaning, you need the same minumum delay to visually scan from the *pdf image to the n-o version. 1 sec. is too long. The ablity to compare and syncronise is lost IMO, if they can't both be viewed together on the screen. Q- has anyone done this ? As part of my effort to re-run LNO [I failed on Mandrake9 / KDE] I've managed with RedHat6.2 and an old windows manager to move ghostscript [with a *pdf in view] to the bottom half of n-o's user-track. As the mouse cursor is moved between the two, the 'unfocused' one becomes difficult to read. Q - can this 'smart facility' of faded apearance when unfocused be removed ? Q - does anybody have other related ideas ? Thanks, == Chris Glur. PS. since I couldn't get the old version of LNO [approx same date as v2.3.6 DOSbased became available] to run with Mandrake9 [it opens the xterm for about half a second only] I've down loaded the latest disk0.dsk & *.tgz. And I fail here too. I'm wondering why the installation instructions lists step 3 as 'get the *.arc files to the directory' and step 5 executes the installation. Q - surely the *.arc files only allow additional applications AFTER installation & run; IF the user want's those applications ? I.e. is not part of installation & run ?

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Flash drives
by Douglas G. Danforth 26 Jun '05

26 Jun '05

Folks, "Flash-based drives possible for Apple laptops" is a heading in a recent article. I was musing on what consequence this would have on "disk partitions" since there are no cylinders for flash drives. Which makes me ask, "how dependent is the installation of Bluebottle on the partition concept?" What are the consequences for multiple operating systems residing on the same flash memory? -Doug

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Re: A query about Oberon and PICs
by Aubrey McIntosh 25 Jun '05

25 Jun '05

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hi Les I'd be glad to help you try to get Bluebottle going in your environment. I think it would be better overall to do it on the Bluebottle list, so that it is archived, it will help others, and if I say something stupid someone else can speak up before you lose too much time. The list details are: List-Id: ETH Oberon and related systems <oberon.lists.inf.ethz.ch> List-Unsubscribe: <https://www.mail.inf.ethz.ch/lists/listinfo/oberon>, <mailto:oberon-request@lists.inf.ethz.ch?subject=unsubscribe> List-Archive: <https://www.mail.inf.ethz.ch/archive/oberon> List-Post: <mailto:oberon@lists.inf.ethz.ch> List-Help: <mailto:oberon-request@lists.inf.ethz.ch?subject=help> List-Subscribe: <https://www.mail.inf.ethz.ch/lists/listinfo/oberon>, <mailto:oberon-request@lists.inf.ethz.ch?subject=subscribe> Bluebottle machines seem to fall into two categories: They boot immediately with no need for help, or they are truly difficult. I have both kinds of machines in my home lab. There also seem to be some troubles with people who try to boot from a Linux system, but have some or other detail on their MBR not quite compatible. As I know next to nothing about Linux, I didn't remember much about these situations. Also, it seems that everyone has their favorite Boot Manager and they don't like to receive advice recommending another one. I recommend trying these situations in this order: 1. Boot from the Crazy-Fresh CD image. This almost always goes ok, and doesn't modify your hard disk at all. Some of the applications are zipped up and not available for use. From power up to operational is only about 45 seconds. This environment lets you do some diagnostics and install to a more permanent environment. If you have DHCP support on your network, you will also be network-alive as soon as you are booted. You can use the RAM: volume as scratch, mount a diskette, or mount a USB device (I have mounted a Fuji Finepix 2800 camera ) I don't remember if you can send and receive email (via Oberon) directly from the CD boot, or if there is another small amount of installation to be done. But you are very close to being able to capture diagnostics and communicate from the CD environment, and if you have it working on Native Oberon, you can set it up easily. 2. If your firmware supports boot from a USB flash disk, install the system there next. With a lot of effort, I have produced an image that boots and is useable from a 4 MB USB/CF image. However, it is inexpensive to get a 128 MB or larger CF today. Bluebottle installs comfortably in a 128 Mb partition, and additional partitions can be mounted (Bluebottle has moved back to a lot of Unix like concepts that Oberon abandoned 15 years ago.) So far, I have not destroyed an installed system using Bluebottle, and I have used it to recover a destroyed NT disk. However, I have to say that is prudent to disconnect your Linux HD until you are sure that you have mastery on the partition scheme in both Bluebottle and Linux. (My Windows 2000 system has a large and valuable windows partition that Bluebottle shows an "available to allocate" space.) You can also use a boot floppy to boot from a USB partition, if your firmware will not support the USB boot. 3. When this is tuned as you like it, then deal with the HD installation itself. At 04:19 PM 6/24/2005, you wrote: >Hi Aubrey, > >Searching for how to get hold of a copy of the book 'Project Oberon' I >came across your posting on using Oberon (Bluebottle) to cross compile for >PICs. > >I have Native Oberon System 3 running on one of my machines and am a big >fan of Oberon. We seem to be quite rare! An e-mail friend who like me is >interested in Oberon is at: > >http://www.verhoeven272.nl > >There are a couple of Oberon pages. I have contributed a bit about some >Oberon books and we have helped each other with getting our systems up and >running. > >If you can tell me anything about setting up Bluebottle I would be very >grateful. I would probably want to put it on the second hard drive of my >Linux machine, i.e. hdc or D: as Windows would call it, and would like to >boot it via a floppy. > >Have you managed to write an Oberon compiler for PIC? If you have I am >sure Jan who runs the above web site would be very interested in giving it >some publicity on the web site. I don't have anything of merit on the PIC compiler. I'm at that stage where I think the implementation path I chose (modifying Oberon0) is all wrong, and I should have used a different approach (working on Franz's translating loader, or using OFront and a PIC C compiler.) >Best wishes > >Les May > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGPfreeware 7.0.3 for non-commercial use <http://www.pgp.com> iQA/AwUBQry1wQKlSw8yssF7EQJ8hgCdHOHDhXVzduABwEcO5m33kaKovlwAmwcE VaApHnlcmUNle50RVPxOd532 =KATR -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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"sense failed = 00" in Kernel log of PC Native 05.01.2003
by shark＠gulfnet.sd64.bc.ca 24 Jun '05

24 Jun '05

This is an arcane detail about ATAPI drives but possibly interesting to someone. Wed Jun 8 17:31:11 2005, Peter said "... Oberon has about 15 s of black screen; Aos has about 25." Changing the CD drive eliminated the delay. Reading a little in ATADisks.Mod suggest that the delay happens when ATA devices are probed or "sensed" at startup. Most drives are sensed immediately. Appears that this drive has a defect or does not conform to the ATAPI specifications. Interesting that when Debian starts up with the drive, there is no such delay. Either Debian understands the problem and doesn't waste time on it or just doesn't incur the delay. Regards, ... Peter Desktops.OpenDoc http://carnot.pathology.ubc.ca/

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memory requirements
by shark＠gulfnet.sd64.bc.ca 23 Jun '05

23 Jun '05

Starting the Aos WindowManager in a machine with 32 MB yields this in the Kernel.Log. [1] TRAP 14 PL 3 out of memory Aos 08.06.05 The hardware requirements on http://bluebottle.ethz.ch/instreq.html do not mention memory. Can anyone tell me what memory to aim for? Thanks, ... Peter E. Desktops.OpenDoc http://carnot.pathology.ubc.ca/

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[Oberon] http://bluebottle.ethz.ch/instreq.html Supported Hardware, ...
by shark＠gulfnet.sd64.bc.ca 16 Jun '05

16 Jun '05

ETH said, > Graphics controller: Any controller that supports a linear VESA 2.0/3.0 > framebuffer ... More difficult to find than I anticipated. Four different cards all proved to be VESA 1.2. (8-( No card I've seen has the VESA version number marked on it. A list of video cards known to be useable would really help. > (1024x768x16 or higher suggested). Ie. 2 MB or more? The SiS video on my system board is VESA 2, but only 1 MB. Thanks, ... Peter E. Desktops.OpenDoc http://carnot.pathology.ubc.ca/

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