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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-AU link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D;mso-fareast-language:EN-US'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div style='border:none;border-left:solid blue 1.5pt;padding:0cm 0cm 0cm 4.0pt'><div><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #E1E1E1 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0cm 0cm 0cm'><p class=MsoNormal><b><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'> Oberon [mailto:oberon-bounces@lists.inf.ethz.ch] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Jan de Kruyf<br><b>Sent:</b> Friday, 8 May 2020 5:07 PM<br><b>To:</b> ETH Oberon and related systems<br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [Oberon] Unlimited Oberon System for any board<o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal>Chris,<o:p></o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal>Sorry to disappoint you but no rocket scientist is ever going to touch Oberon, not even with a bargepole. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>OK, OK – I may have used a bit of poetic licence but that statement is also an exaggeration. You don’t actually need to be a rocket scientist to be able to use Oberon ;-)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>How about if I tell you that it is used by a scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory? What about the <a name="an_oberon-based_rocket_engine_materials_">‘Oberon-based Rocket Engine Materials Testing System</a>’ presented at Oberon Day 2011? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>In the rare case they know Oberon they laugh very loudly and ask: "Which Oberon?". <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>And I? Well I think I will just carry on using Ada and perhaps Linux for my hobby projects. <span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>To that I would laugh very loudly and ask “Which Linux?” ;-)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Seriously though, I actually asked that question earlier this week as I needed to install it on one of my PCs to use ISE and investigate the potential of .NET Core.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal>It's a bit of an overkill, but then it works, it has the rich environment, and in the case of Ada it has the speed and the security, and I know both well.<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>By the way I did enjoy reading through some of the stuff on your website. You did a good job for Oberon. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Thank you. I appreciate your comment </span><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Wingdings;color:#1F497D'>J</span><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Thank you also for your feedback – it is very useful.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><div><p class=MsoNormal>On Fri, 8 May 2020, 02:13 Chris Burrows, <<a href="mailto:chris@cfbsoftware.com">chris@cfbsoftware.com</a>> wrote:<o:p></o:p></p></div><blockquote style='border:none;border-left:solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt;padding:0cm 0cm 0cm 6.0pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-right:0cm'><p class=MsoNormal>> -----Original Message-----<br>> From: Oberon [mailto:<a href="mailto:oberon-bounces@lists.inf.ethz.ch" target="_blank">oberon-bounces@lists.inf.ethz.ch</a>] On Behalf Of<br>> Skulski, Wojciech<br>> Sent: Thursday, 7 May 2020 11:01 PM<br>> To: ETH Oberon and related systems<br>> Subject: Re: [Oberon] Unlimited Oberon System for any board<br>> <br>> Joerg:<br>> <br>> > In this discussion, I miss a little bit the SW cost..<br>> <br>> Do you mean Linux, which is free, or Oberon System, which is also free?<br>> <br>> Or do you mean the cost of software development by *ourselves*, which<br>> somehow was not ever mentioned in this discussion? There was a lot of<br>> attention devoted to which SBC is cheaper. Somehow, nobody in this<br>> discussion said: "I bought $5 computer, and I spent NNN hours getting a<br>> project ABC running. Since my time is worth XXX dollars per hour, the<br>> total cost was $5 + XXX * NNN." We mostly argue about $5 or $50 per<br>> board. Of course we lean towards $5. Who cares about XXX * NNN?<br>> <br><br>That sums up why we should not be concerned about what a hobbyist (as<br>opposed to a professional engineer or scientist) is prepared to pay for a<br>development board to support the Project Oberon operating system. The system<br>is much more suited to professionals who value their time and are more<br>interested in building solutions. Many hobbyists seem to get some sort of<br>devious pleasure from the satisfaction of finally getting a blinker program<br>working after spending many weeks cobbling together ten different versions<br>of ten different tools from ten different sources. They typically have the<br>attention span of a goldfish. Once their development system is ready to go<br>and they could start doing some really interesting creative development work<br>they get bored and start looking for something else to do.<br><br>I get it. I have an occasional hobbyist interest in vintage electronics.<br>Recently I restored a 4-valve (a.k.a. 4-tube) 1946 domestic radio set. Most<br>of the enjoyment in the exercise was derived from visiting a Sunday morning<br>sale of the local Historical Radio Society, which led to a trip to the<br>Adelaide Hills where I met a guy who has a collection of 50,000 valves (all<br>carefully packaged and catalogued) in two containers. I also tracked down a<br>supplier in the USA to get the replacement vintage grill cloth and other<br>bits and pieces. The whole exercise, including restoring the wooden cabinet,<br>took a couple of months and cost a few hundred dollars. Imagine what that<br>would have cost if I had employed a professional to do it. <br><br>Now the radio is working do I listen to it? Of course not. It was the<br>'journey not the destination' that I was interested in. Added to the fact I<br>was unable to receive authentic radio broadcasts from the 1940's on it - my<br>next project is going to be a time machine ;-) <br><br>I believe the best target new audience for the Oberon language and Project<br>Oberon is the professional electronics engineer or rocket scientist who<br>doesn't enjoy programming for the sake of it but regards it as a necessary<br>evil to get a job done. Personally, I don't use Project Oberon as my<br>development environment and have no interest in seeing it run on a<br>credit-card sized PC. Instead I view it as a brilliant working example to<br>prove what can be achieved using the Oberon Language on resource-limited<br>hardware. Having said that, it is not just an academic exercise. I see<br>enormous potential in the use of the realtime Project Oberon operating<br>system kernel as an alternative RTOS to whatever else is currently out<br>there. However, to fully exploit and extend its capabilities it is necessary<br>to have real FPGA hardware available to run it on. I'm currently working<br>hard to try and make that happen,<br><br>Regards,<br>Chris<br><br>Chris Burrows<br>CFB Software<br><a href="https://www.astrobe.com/RISC5" target="_blank">https://www.astrobe.com/RISC5</a><br><br><br>--<br><a href="mailto:Oberon@lists.inf.ethz.ch" target="_blank">Oberon@lists.inf.ethz.ch</a> mailing list for ETH Oberon and related systems<br><a href="https://lists.inf.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/oberon" target="_blank">https://lists.inf.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/oberon</a><o:p></o:p></p></blockquote></div></div></div></body></html>