January 2014 - Oberon - mailman3.inf.ethz.ch

Re: [Oberon] Re (2): Project Oberon: New Edition
by eas lab 26 May '14

26 May '14

Some ideas on HCI: we techies overlook it's importance; which is demonstarted by stupid notation like "a better experience". What's that ? It needs to be analysed. There's a Swiss HCI specialist who AFAIK is/was associated with ETHO. Focus on the human psychology, not the computer hardware. Although we all differ, some basic evolved human attributes are: short-term memory limited to ca. 3 items; recognision is mot limited by memory. This automatically leads to the menu-concept, which TUI has. We all learned to read and are forced to exercise it in daily life, so menu-items are conveniently: recognisable test-strings. Lifting your arm to point to a screen, is only for short/baby tasks. Perhaps with mobile-devices you can rest your arm. Although the reflexive chording-at-the-mouse position can't be equaled, probably <verb> <noun>...<noun> notation can be efficient. Many tasks can use this. Like: verb:ReplaceAllUntilNextVerb To From1 ...FromN But can mobile devices conveniently/accurately select a text-stretch? ---------------- The other essential capability, where ETHO excels is multiple files simultaneously visible/accessible. Most non-trival tasks needs 4,5,6 files visible/accessible at once. == Chris Glur. On 12/22/13, peasthope(a)shaw.ca <peasthope(a)shaw.ca> wrote: > Claudio and everyone, > > From: Claudio Nieder <private(a)claudio.ch> > Date: Sun, 22 Dec 2013 02:40:43 +0100 >> ... unnecessary fragmentation. > > Yes, fragmentation is probably the biggest obstacle to efficient > use of computing. > >> Some people on this list care mostly about the TUI and are happy >> having that with any other kind of OS running beneath of it. >> Others might even hate the TUI because the mouse-interclicks >> cannot be translated to touch screens ... > > There is a very simple and effective way of integrating the familiar > Oberon TUI with the gestural touchscreen approach. The result, I > believe, is more powerful than any extant interface. > > I have a description of this interface and am working on a prototypical > implementation. To avoid pre-emption of the ideas by commercial > interests, details have not yet been published. > > Best Regards, ... Peter E. > > -- > 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 12 > Tel +1 360 639 0202 Bcc: peasthope at shaw.ca http://carnot.yi.org/ > > > -- > Oberon(a)lists.inf.ethz.ch mailing list for ETH Oberon and related systems > https://lists.inf.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/oberon >

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Project Oberon, 2013 Edition
by Paul Reed 01 Apr '14

01 Apr '14

Hi Oberoners, As some have already now noticed, Prof. Wirth and I have tidied up and added some new material to his home page, including a pre-release of a new version of the Project Oberon book. The system in the new edition runs on a computer implemented on a field-programmable gate array (FPGA), removing in particular the dependency on the defunct NS32032 processor in the original book. The version of the Oberon language used to implement the new system in its entirety is based on Oberon-07, separate material for which is also already available on Prof. Wirth's site http://www.inf.ethz.ch/personal/wirth/. The new Project Oberon documents should not be considered final and will continue to be updated substantially over the next few months. Best regards, Paul Reed

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Re: [Oberon] PNG Encoder codec
by F. Necati Ecevit 26 Mar '14

26 Mar '14

FreeImage (V3.15.4) wrapper library for WinAos and LinuxAos is now available at; https://www.ocp.inf.ethz.ch/svn/ocp/trunk Happy Christmas and new Year. - Necati.

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Re: [Oberon] WITH removal in Oberon-07
by Paul Reed 13 Mar '14

13 Mar '14

> Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2013 22:52:05 +0100 > From: "Frans-Pieter Vonck" <fp(a)vonck.nl> > Subject: Re: [Oberon] WITH removal in Oberon-07 Hi Frans-Pieter, > i watched your presentation at MEDIA OberonDay2011. > Am I right that you made an ARM emulator first. No. The virtual machine is RISC, as in Prof. Wirth's Compiler Construction book (published in English in 1996 and updated on his home page http://www.inf.ethz.ch/personal/wirth/) > And did you use this emulator to ran Oberon System07 on top of it? It's not called System07, but it's basically the original system in the Project Oberon book, modified to compile under Oberon-07, run inside a RISC virtual machine executing on a bare-metal PC. > You showed a Spartan FPGA. I scanned through the Verilog ARM code. But > that seems a to big leap to me. I don't know what Verilog code you are referring to here. The Spartan-3 board only has 500K gates and 1MB of external static RAM, so it's much smaller and simpler than a typical ARM system. But ideal for Oberon. > Do you think it is possible to run [The Oberon System, compiled in Oberon-07] on an of the shelf > board with a Cortex M3 processor? I don't see why not, but most small ARM boards don't have a video framebuffer. The Raspberry Pi does, but it's a complicated board, as I've said before. The Oberon inner core (Kernel, FileDir, Files, Modules) and even the text system do not actually require a framebuffer display, so you could build a hybrid system. Using a simple FPGA board allows us to avoid the vast and irrelevant complexity inherent with most ARM System-on-Chip (SoC) systems; but since field-programmable gate arrays are so flexible, they will never be as cheap or as fast as a dedicated ARM. That's life. :) HTH Paul

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Re: [Oberon] structure of wiki/Documentation/Installation page
by peter＠easthope.ca 31 Jan '14

31 Jan '14

Correction. That should have been, "I don't want to make corrections without some indication of agreement." Regards, ... Peter E. -- 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 12 Tel +1 360 639 0202 http://carnot.yi.org/ **** New address Bcc: peter at easthope. ca ****

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structure of wiki/Documentation/Installation page
by peasthope＠shaw.ca 31 Jan '14

31 Jan '14

Hello again, The structure of wiki/Documentation/Installation is irrational. "Approximate Storage Requirements" should cover all variant forms but is subordinate to "Install A2". The "Hardware", "Start-up" and "Troubleshooting" sections do not apply to UnixAos but the page suggestss they do. I don't want to make corrections some indication of agreement. Regards, ... Peter E. -- 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 12 Tel +1 360 639 0202 http://carnot.yi.org/ **** New address Bcc: peter at easthope. ca ****

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structure of wiki/Documentation/Installation page
by peasthope＠shaw.ca 31 Jan '14

31 Jan '14

Hello again, The structure of wiki/Documentation/Installation is irrational. "Approximate Storage Requirements" should cover all variant forms but is subordinate to "Install A2". The "Hardware", "Start-up" and "Troubleshooting" sections do not apply to UnixAos but the page suggestss they do. I don't want to make corrections some indication of agreement. Regards, ... Peter E. -- 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 12 Tel +1 360 639 0202 http://carnot.yi.org/ **** New address Bcc: peter at easthope. ca ****

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Booting FPGA Oberon / LNO
by greim 30 Jan '14

30 Jan '14

Paul, > As the book says, the RS232 interface was used extensively by Prof. Wirth > as the system was developed. > > The bootloader for the Oberon system will vary, depend on what hardware is > actually attached. It is compiled using the "RISC0" mode of the compiler, > triggered by an asterisk after the keyword MODULE, which generates a > single self-contained instruction stream for inclusion directly in the > FPGA. > - bootloader and mem-file again. At http://www.inf.ethz.ch/personal/wirth/Articles/MemoRISC0.doc i have found a document related to your suggestions. snip....Run cmd.ext to start DOS shell, then navigate to folder RISC0\test. Execute command OSP.Compile Test7.Mod to compile source code Test7.Mod and generate code image (here ins1.mem)....snip If i understood it right, i need an Oberon Compiler producing bootable code (MODULE*) for the RISC5 not RISC0 architecture? In the net on GitHub i found a quite new ORP.Mod (which is including ORS, ORB, ORG as described in chapter 12.1, Figure 12.1 on page 14 of the Oberon Report) Is this the right tool for this job? But whats about the hint with the DOS Shell, i assume i have to run this ORP.Mod in Native Oberon? In chapter 14.1 of the latest Oberon Report page 76 there is the source of a MODULE* BootLoad; .... I guess this could be the right bootloader, am i right here? On page 77 the boot process is explained. A linker tool called ORL is mentioned there several times. Do you know where i can find this tool? Or is ORL = ORP ? - LNO By the way any hints to install LNO on an not so actual 32 bit Linux Machine ? When starting it i get always the message: Oberon Boot File Loader 22.11.2004 starting System.Init Trace/Breakpoint ausgelöst as described already 2011 at: http://fruttenboel.verhoeven272.nl/Oberon/lno1.html My system is a good old 32 bit machine: uname -a: Linux makuslinux3 2.6.27.56-0.1-pae #1 SMP 2010-12-01 16:57:58 +0100 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux Maybe i have to find an old PC to install RNO (real native Oberon ;-) ) Any help welcome! Markus

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Merge Requests
by peasthope＠shaw.ca 29 Jan '14

29 Jan '14

Hi, In the OCP Forum > Merge Requests, the last response is from Sven Stauber responding to "OFS.Tool Bernhard T. July 22, 2010". In effect, this branch of the Forum has become a list of bug reports. Merging of a fix on individual systems worldwide consumes enormous human resources in comparison to having the fix, once and for all, in the distribution. Many potential users will dismiss the system before finding fixes or attempting to make them. I understand that everyone is spread thinly and that the task of merging requires a deep understanding of the system. Consequently ETH can face difficulties with merging. So my question; should merging still be considered viable? Otherwise we might simply submit corrections to the community subversion repository. Best regards and thanks for any response, ... Peter E. -- 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 12 Tel +1 360 639 0202 http://carnot.yi.org/ **** New address Bcc: peter at easthope. ca ****

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Re: [Oberon] FPGA Oberon prom.mem / SD-card formating
by eas lab 26 Jan '14

26 Jan '14

> ]- bootlaoder: > ] i am just trying to build up the FPGA Oberon system, shown in Prof. > ] Wirths latest Oberon paper (my Ariel project..). > Paste the URL. which URL, the URL of my project? There isn't any yet. But if somebody is interested in, i will publish a Wiki. Griem wrote the above:---------------------- Yes, put your project to inet; then others can follow, who want to. Mail-list is too fragmented for a whole project. == Chris Glur. NB. Oberon is NOT TUI/ETHOberon.

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