May 2022 - Oberon - mailman3.inf.ethz.ch

Reorganizing the wikibook.
by peter＠easthope.ca 30 May '22

30 May '22

Hi, At the end of the discussion at this URL is a suggestion to reorganize the book with text on the front page limited to the table of contents. https://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Wikibooks:Reading_room/General&o… https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Brief_History_of_Europe is cited as an example. Until now the book has grown by evolution rather than according to a comprehensive plan. The proposal will allow better organization and more efficient maintenance. I'm happy to adopt. A draft TOC is at https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Oberon/TOC . Any comments before the change proceeds? Thanks! ... P. -- mobile: +1 778 951 5147 VoIP: +1 604 670 0140 48.7693 N 123.3053 W

1 0

Improved version of module ORB for Project Oberon 2013
by Andreas Pirklbauer 29 May '22

29 May '22

I have been asked to make the way Extended Oberon implements import/export available to Project Oberon 2013 as well. There it is: http://github.com/andreaspirklbauer/Oberon-module-imports <http://github.com/andreaspirklbauer/Oberon-module-imports> The most important change is that the “fixup" technique for types has been eliminated altogether (as it is not needed, given that pre-order traversal is used to export types). Also, ORB.ThisModule has improved heuristics for what combinations of explicit imports (via declaration) and re-imports are allowed.

1 0

A2 repository unavailable?
by Bernhard Treutwein 27 May '22

27 May '22

are there known problems with the official subversion repository for A2 at https://cas.inf.ethz.ch/projects/a2/repository or did it move again to a new place/infrastructure? I am not able to reach it. -- Bernhard

3 2

ALU 2015 and 2018
by Skulski, Wojciech 21 May '22

21 May '22

All: trying to somewhat understand RISC5, I looked at two implementations dated 25.9.2015 and 31.8.2018. Four questions: 1. Is the latter implementation the most recent one? 2. The ALU implementation in the latter one looks very significantly different from the former. The former uses the instruction mnemonics like MOV, LSL, etc., as explained in RISC.pdf on page 9. The latter one does not use any mnemonics. It is a cascaded case statement (or a priority decoder, if you will) whose coding style looks mind boggling to me. Why is it so that the coding style was changed so significantly? 3. Almost all the RISC5.v (either version) is coded combinatorially with "assign" statements. There is only one clocked "always block" at the end, where it is not even clear how these combinatorial paths get executed. For example, the ALU result "aluRes" is never assigned to any register, as one would expect in a register-based FPGA design. In the RISC5 design, instruction execution looks almost like a byproduct. How was this design motivated, when it it is generally believed in the FPGA literature that registers are the most fundamental bulding blocks of any FPGA firmware? 4. Looking at the "assign" equations (especially the ALU) I suspect that they created long combinatorial paths which slow down the CPU operation. Is it true? Can the CPU run faster if it was explicitly coded with registers? Or is Xilinx compiler smart enough to automatically infer the registers by itself? Thank you, Wojtek

11 37

Re (2): Updating Project Oberon PDF Docs
by peter＠easthope.ca 20 May '22

20 May '22

Guido, From: Guido Bartolucci <guido.bartolucci(a)gmail.com> Date: Fri, 20 May 2022 12:56:02 -0400 > As for the copyright. I am not a lawyer, but it says the following, which > looks a lot like a BSD or MIT style license. But I'd love a lawyer to > confirm for us. This might help. https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Oberon#Licenses Try to find the discussion in "archive of Media_copyright_questions". Not a legal opinion but it's from a more experienced Wikimedia person. A legal opinion without a payment is unlikely. Regards, ... P.L. -- mobile: +1 778 951 5147 VoIP: +1 604 670 0140 48.7693 N 123.3053 W

1 0

Re (2): Re (2): Updating Project Oberon PDF Docs (was: ALU 2015 and 2018)
by peter＠easthope.ca 20 May '22

20 May '22

> Which pdftohtml do you use that has option -dataurls ? Routine installation in Linux Debian 11 (bullseye). The parameter name "dataurls" comes from HTML. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_URI_scheme > I can find numerous pdftohtml implementations on the web, but it's > unclear to me which one to use for this purpose. Development history of Poppler should record a date and version when the capability was added. Then check against the Poppler version in your system. Regards, ... P.L. -- mobile: +1 778 951 5147 VoIP: +1 604 670 0140 48.7693 N 123.3053 W

1 0

Re (2): Updating Project Oberon PDF Docs (was: ALU 2015 and 2018)
by peter＠easthope.ca 18 May '22

18 May '22

From: Chris Burrows <cfbsoftware(a)gmail.com> Date: Wed, 18 May 2022 09:33:50 +0930 > We use Acrobat to save PDF files as Microsoft Word documents. We are > then able to edit the Word documents to our heart's content. pdftohtml now has parameter -dataurls allowing images to be incorporated in the HTML file. For example, pdftohtml -dataurls -c -s MyPhDthesis.pdf produces MyPhDthesis.html mimicking the appearance of the original PDF reasonably well. The HTML can be edited directly. With enough screen area, the HTML can be edited in a viewer or window while rendered in an adjacent browser. I've used LinuxA2 > Oberon ET to edit while rendering with Desktops.Opendoc or dillo. This technique imposes no reliance upon proprietary software and is reasonably effective. In the trial here, the PDF and HTML are approximately the same size. A significant quantity of markup might be eliminated without loss of content. From: skulski(a)pas.rochester.edu, Wed, May 18, 2022 at 8:08 AM > Quite unfortunately, PO.Computer and other docs are not live. I'm increasingly convinced that software with long term value should be documented in a wiki. When the wikibook was started there was concern for vandalism and well meaning but misguided editing. In fact vandalism is minimal and easily combated. Misguided editing is a smaller concern than apathy. Sometimes I wish a knowledgable person would contribute to the wikibook. So for Wojtek's documentation I'd say the ideal is a wiki. The second choice is HTML. Regards, ... P.L. -- mobile: +1 778 951 5147 VoIP: +1 604 670 0140 48.7693 N 123.3053 W

2 1

XYplane/OBNC
by Joe Turner 17 May '22

17 May '22

I'm using XYplane with the obnc compiler on Linux and am wondering whether it's possible to send output to the console while interacting with the graphics window. The idea is to use the mouse on the graphics window and send text to the console depending on what's clicked. I can of course write code to implement pixel characters and write them on the graphics window, but I want to avoid having to do this if possible. Thanks in advance for any advice. -- Sent with https://mailfence.com Secure and private email

1 0

Impartial observation? (Or silly blather from left field?); was: ALU 2015 and 2018.
by peter＠easthope.ca 14 May '22

14 May '22

In first year computer science, two rules were easily prosecuted by a teaching assistant. (1) Use meaningful names. Eg. upperLimit means more than y. (2) Avoid magic numbers. Eg. AperyConstant is preferable to 1.2020569. From: "Skulski, Wojciech" <skulski(a)pas.rochester.edu> Date: Thu, 12 May 2022 20:29:00 +0000 > ... 1... Violates (2)? And "One = 1" would violate (1). Of course, someone with an established comprehensive understanding sees a non-issue. The entire stanza containing 1 is understood immediately. It's the person lacking comprehensive understanding who has difficulty. TTFN, ... P.L. -- mobile: +1 778 951 5147 VoIP: +1 604 670 0140 48.7693 N 123.3053 W

5 6

ALU 2015 and 2018
by Andreas Pirklbauer 13 May '22

13 May '22

fd > > Writing correct code is already demanding enough, but writing publishable (!) > > code is exacting! > > > Publishable? RISC5 has been published. Are you arguing that this code > is "publishable" because it was published? Or are you saying this code > stands by itself as being publishable because of its > clarity? > Should this code be presented and taught as is? Actually, I was making a general comment on comments and how I (like to) write Oberon - not RISC5 - code. It was not specifically about RISC5. Whether the RISC5 code as published today is actually “publishable”, is .. apparently .. a topic of this thread..

1 0