February 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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FPGA Obern WORKS !!!
by greim 03 Mar '14

03 Mar '14

Hi, at a small picture http://www.schleibinger.com/bilder/oberon.jpg ProjectOberon really works! The SD card is written with 1K block size. Its now running from the Verilog and SD image files. I was not able to compile the Verilog files yet, still problems with Prom.v. I will try further... But many thanks to Prof. Wirth and Paul Reed for their real great work!! Markus Greim

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ProjectOberon (FPGA) blocksize SD card image
by greim 28 Feb '14

28 Feb '14

Hallo Paul, i have programmed the Spartan board with your ROM image file. And i have got a LED on and some stochastic screen which can be inverted by the switch 8 on the board. I ahev also soldered the adapter board without the wireless module. I have copied the SD card image to a SD card with dd but i am wondering which block size is required as parameter for dd. In the book the sector size for the file system is given with 1k, but there sector and block is used in the same way, so i am not sure about this. Best Regards Markus

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FPGA Oberon on projectoberon: Verilog instead of VHDL
by Frans-Pieter Vonck 26 Feb '14

26 Feb '14

Hi Oberoneurs, >VHL sorry, should be VHDL. Clearly did not know what the acronym meant. I looked it up at Wikipedia : On VHDL: -------------- "VHDL,(VHSIC Hardware Description Language)." "VHSIC (Very High Speed Integrated Circuit) was a 1980s U.S. government program." "VHDL borrows heavily from the Ada programming language in both concepts and syntax." On Verilog: --------------- "The designers of Verilog wanted a language with syntax similar to the C programming language [..]" Anyone has an idea why Wirth choose Verilog instead of VHDL? Greets, F.P. > Hi all, > > goggling for RISC5Top.v give for example this result: > > http://www.projectoberon.com/ > > Paul Reed has published a new web site an 17.feb.2014! > Very exciting...seems to be the latest source code including some missing puzzle parts. > > Unfortunately NW didn't mentioned it on his birthday colloquium. > > On > <http://www.srf.ch/wissen/digital/computer-pionier-niklaus-wirth-80-und-aktiv> there is a short radio feature about Prof. Wirth, including some pictures of his "Circuit Cellar" > > Markus Greim > > > > > > -- > 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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FPGA Oberon on projectoberon.com!
by greim 25 Feb '14

25 Feb '14

Hi all, goggling for RISC5Top.v give for example this result: http://www.projectoberon.com/ Paul Reed has published a new web site an 17.feb.2014! Very exciting...seems to be the latest source code including some missing puzzle parts. Unfortunately NW didn't mentioned it on his birthday colloquium. On <http://www.srf.ch/wissen/digital/computer-pionier-niklaus-wirth-80-und-aktiv> there is a short radio feature about Prof. Wirth, including some pictures of his "Circuit Cellar" Markus Greim

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NO qemu
by Jan Verhoeven 24 Feb '14

24 Feb '14

Lads, I managed to get Native Oberon running under QEMU. Download all from ftp://ftp.ethoberon.ethz.ch/ETHOberon/Native/StdAlone/ Rename oberon0.dsk into oberon0.img Creat file 'run': qemu-system-i386 \ -m 128 \ -fda oberon0.img \ -boot a \ -localtime \ -vga vmware \ -net nic,model=rtl8139 \ -net user and run the system. I must say: it works as expected. I need to grab (and release) the mouse by means of Alt-Ctrl-G I guess my 'run' file still is not optimal but NO can be run with qemu. -- Groetjes Jan Verhoeven

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Re: [Oberon] Merge Requests
by eas lab 19 Feb '14

19 Feb '14

You are right. But short term socio-economic considerations over rule those of technical correctness. == Chris Glur. On 1/30/14, peasthope(a)shaw.ca <peasthope(a)shaw.ca> wrote: > 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 **** > > > -- > 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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