[Oberon] Availability of OberonStation

[Chris Burrows]

> 
> From: Oberon [mailto:oberon-bounces at lists.inf.ethz.ch] On Behalf Of
> Ken Boak
> Sent: Monday, 18 January 2016 7:29 PM
> To: oberon at lists.inf.ethz.ch
> Subject: [Oberon] Availability of OberonStation
> 
> Have any of the list had experience of the Oberon system on the
> Xilinx Artix-7  - specifically on the $99 Arty board - is this a
> preferred platform?
> 

It is likely that I have had the most experience on the Xilinx Artix-7 seeing as I ported our 'embedded' subset of ProjectOberon to the Arty board ;-)

I agree with Walter. Oberon-07 is an ideal language for developing embedded applications. I'm not sure what you mean by 'preferred platform'. The Arty (Artix-7) and the Pippistrello (Spartan-6 LX45) development boards are the only two I have found so far that have sufficient BRAM to run embedded ProjectOberon without external SRAM. 

Saanlima's Pippistrello is about $50 more than the Arty. However, the Pippistrello does have a built-in SD Card socket and can also be used as an ProjectOberon Workstation development system with Saanlima's optional Oberon SRAM 'Wing'. 

There are many simpler FPGA boards available but all the ones I have found use less-capable FPGA devices with insufficient BRAM. The Arty and the Pippistrello have more features than are needed for embedded Oberon applications like those on the ARM Cortex-M3/M4 boards that we support. However, I guess that doesn't matter for those who are designing their own boards and just want an off-the-shelf reference system to use for prototyping / proof of concept. 

If on the other hand you want to run the complete Project Oberon 'workstation' system with VGA / HDMI, keyboard and mouse. You will need a board with external SRAM like the OberonStation. An Arty would not be suitable for this purpose.

> Finally, and perhaps best addressed  to Chris Burrows - I see that
> you have produced packages for the ARM M3 and M4 Cortex - mainly NXP.
> Do you have any aspirations to port to Cortex M7 - such as the $50
> STM32F7 Discovery Platform - which has a great selection of useful
> hardware on-board?
> 

There used to be an clear distinction between the simple 8-bit microcontroller at one end of the spectrum and the 64-bit PC at the other. In recent years the two have started to converge. The embedded systems are becoming more powerful; the PCs are becoming smaller and less power-hungry - the distinction is blurring.

The STM32F7 Discovery Platform seems to me to be more a miniature PC than a high-power embedded system. While we remain focused on supporting embedded systems we are unlikely to be targeting it, 

Regards,
Chris

Chris Burrows
CFB Software
http://www.astrobe.com/RISC5