[Oberon] ETH Oberon source and module SYSTEM

[Paul Reed]

Chris,

> Today I tried to trace the M.P route of how eg. ET.* gets to the VGA-port.
> [Like you CAN trace how http* arrives via a serial-port-modem ...etc.]
> For ETH Oberon (2.4.3) for Linux x86   and
> V4/oberon-1.7.02/Source  and my
>  source1, 2, 3.arc  which I guess comes from Native;

Please don't reply using the subject RISC5 and then talk about ETH Oberon,
it's confusing.


> in all cases the path is concealed at: IMPORT SYSTEM.
> Some of us resent that. Oberon may have had a better following if
> it had been open. OTOH perhaps that was not possible?

Sorry, but that's complete rubbish.

SYSTEM is a pseudo-module intended to enable non-portable features of the
Oberon language.  It's documented in the Oberon language report (any
version).

By the way, the only "concealed" sections of the original Oberon system,
ie not included in the Project Oberon book, were the Kernel and Display
driver, which were written in machine-code, and thought to be arcane and
of little general interest at the time.  (As stated in the preface to the
new edition, this is no longer the case, Kernel and Display for the RISC
are written in Oberon.)

Thanks,
Paul