[Oberon] Oberon bare metal on the Raspberry Pi

[Charles Perkins]

Thank you Paul,

It means a lot to me to hear that.

As regards to the status of the project, thank you for the clarification. Also thank
you for undertaking the project! I hope that both of you will continue to improve upon
the code-base and publish those improvements.  I know I have learned a lot from
studying the code, I expect others have and will too.

Best Regards,
Chuck



On Oct 2, 2014, at 5:07 AM, Paul Reed <paulreed at paddedcell.com> wrote:

> Hi Chuck,
> 
>> I think it would be nice to have Oberon running on the bare metal of the
>> Raspberry Pi.
>> 
>> So I have been working on it and I have reached a milestone. I have
>> retargeted the Oberon07 compiler sufficiently to create an ARM binary
>> that, when placed on the rpi SD card, gets loaded by the rpi firmware and
>> blinks the LED.
> 
> Fantastic!  Well done, I know the feeling.  There's nothing quite like
> getting an LED to flash.
> And for those who think that's a joke, I suggest the following challenge:
> 
> 0. Select a 32-bit microcontroller/SoC (many can now be had for less than
> the price of a pint of beer).
> 1. Select an evaluation board (many can now be had for less than the price
> of a session of beer).
> 2. Download all required tools and documentation.
> 3. Build and run a program to make an LED flash on the board.
> 4. Explain what every single byte of code and data does.
> 5. Explain why it took so long.
> 
> The industry's dirty little secret is that (due to all the self-inflicted
> complexity), the current state-of-the-art (with the only notable
> exception, to my knowledge, of the Parallax Propeller) is shockingly bad,
> which is why I admire and encourage your efforts.  Perhaps you might
> publish your experiences in the form of a story, what you thought was
> good, bad etc. and pitfalls, so that others may be encouraged to follow
> you "In Sneffels Jokulis craterem"?  :)
> 
> Please note that for the avoidance of doubt, the 2013 update to the
> Project Oberon book and the associated RISC software and FPGA hardware,
> called correctly "Project Oberon, 2013 Edition" is a private project by
> Prof. Niklaus Wirth and myself - not ETH Zurich.  (Having said that, we
> both owe a great debt to Prof. Gutknecht while he was at ETH, and still,
> for his ever-present support, corrections and encouragement.)
> 
> Cheers,
> Paul
> 
> 
> 
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