[Oberon] Oberon-1 or Oberon-2?

[skulski at pas.rochester.edu]

> Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2014 18:09:56 +0100
> From: Joerg <joerg.straube at iaeth.ch>
> Subject: Re: [Oberon] Oberon-1 or Oberon-2?

> The whole idea of the RISC5 project was to dismiss
> this HW/SW discussion and demonstrate how a complete
> computer system works from A to Z: It needs a
> programming language, it needs a compiler,
> it needs an operating system with
> its HW drivers and it needs HW.

The HW/SW discussion has not been dismissed, because you still need a
board. The FPGA needs power, the configuration memory, and a few other
things. As this discussion shows, these details are not quite familiar to
the softies. So the discussion persits, though at a new level. To put it
succintly, the Project Oberon 2013 demonstrated, how to build a System On
Chip (SoC) under the assumption that the chip is properly powered up. It
did not demonstrate, how to build a complete system that also comprises a
working board. The latter is where the HW skills are still needed.

> Adapting an existing compiler to generate RISC5 code
> could be a nice semester work or so.

Developing an FPGA board is about the same amount of work. So we are
talking of two pieces of cake about the size of one semester each.

> But I'm with Chris: Project Oberon is a great achievement
> for education. I would wish there is an active community
> taking care of this project and adding things to it
>(like Chris mentioned eg. Ethernet). In its current
> state it's too simplistic and I guess will not find
> a lot of friends :-(

The progress must consist of single steps. I posed a question of getting
Oberon-2 to work on the new Oberon System 2013. The HW is a separate
question that needs a separate effort. Two steps, one at a time.

Wojtek