[Oberon] The Oberon answer to Arduino

[Aubrey.McIntosh at Alumni.UTexas.Net]

On Thu, Jan 3, 2013 at 7:42 AM, Chris Burrows <chris at cfbsoftware.com> wrote:

> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Jan Verhoeven [mailto:jan at verhoeven272.nl]
> > Sent: Thursday, 3 January 2013 7:12 AM
> > To: ETH Oberon and related systems
> > Subject: Re: [Oberon] The Oberon answer to Arduino
> >
> > Watch it with MIPS cores. 128 Kb of flash is a mere 32 K-instruction word
> > (Kiw) since each instruction is 4 bytes. 32 Kiw is enough for a BASIC
> > interpreter, but I doubt if it would fit anything resembling Oberon.
> >
>
> You can do a lot in 128Kb with software written in Oberon. I have had a
> (very) experimental version of the Lilith Modula-2 M-Code interpreter which
> can run 16-bit Modula-2 programs produced by the ETH M2M-PC compiler on an
> ARM board. The interpreter executable is only about 28Kb. Admittedly it is
> the bare basics but you could do a lot with an extra 100Kb.
>
>
That's really cool.  I have the 5.25" floppies for the M2M system from
Provo here at the desk.   I don't know how to read them anymore, or even if
they are still good.

I also experimentally compiled Wirth's Oberon compiler which is written in
> Oberon using the Astrobe compiler and that produced an ARM executable which
> is still only 80Kb. This might become about 100Kb if it was fully
> operational. However, you would probably need more RAM than is available
> on-chip on these MCUs (typically max of 64Kb) if you wanted to actually
> execute the compiler on an MCU. However, I can't see really the point of
> doing this when it is so easy to do cross-development using a PC.
>

My goal would be to bring up Modules.  I would make the Files module
underneath it be able to get programs from elsewhere.  USB, RS-232, or
Ethernet all are possible transports.  I would do that in preference to
supporting an SD card.

I would then write a new client, the executive in that environment.  I
don't think graphics is feasible.  It would be Command oriented.  I don't
know how to pass parameters in that environment, that is one of the things
that would need to be thought out.  I would almost certainly have an Oberon
aware monitor program running on a PC that connects to it.

If it turned an LED on and off, and could load and free modules, it would
be a significant milestone.



> Regards,
> Chris
>
> Chris Burrows
> CFB Software
> Lilith and Modula-2:
> http://www.cfbsoftware.com/modula2
>
>
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>



-- 
Aubrey McIntosh, Ph.D.
211 E. 5th St.
Morris MN 56267
(512)-348-7401
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