[Oberon] Hardware versus software development.

[Chris Burrows]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: skulski at pas.rochester.edu [mailto:skulski at pas.rochester.edu]
> Sent: Saturday, 1 November 2014 4:13 AM
> To: "Jörg"
> Cc: oberon at lists.inf.ethz.ch; skulski at pas.rochester.edu
> Subject: Re: [Oberon] Hardware versus software development.
> 
> Actually, I do both. My most successful project to date consisted of
> hardware data acquisition and signal processing software written in
> BlackBox. This experience motivates my insistence on the Oberon-2
> because I know how much good SW is available on the CPC website.
> Having the
> Oberon-2 would make this SW pool more accessible.
> 

The software on the CPC website could be categorized into four types:

1. BlackBox environment-dependent

2. Component Pascal-dependent

3. Oberon-2 dependent

4. Other (e.g. generic Oberon algorithms)

As each is effectively a superset of the lower item, it is relatively easy
to port software from (4) to (3) to (2) to (1), but not nearly so easy to go
in the opposite direction.

If you are primarily interested in (1) then you would really need to port
BlackBox to your board, not the Oberon OS. That would give you good access
to all of the software except those that are specificially dependent on
Microsoft Windows features.

If you are primarily interested in (2) then you would need to implement the
component framework-oriented extensions beyond Oberon-2 that are implemented
in Component Pascal.

If you are primarily interested in (3) then, yes, Oberon-2 would make this
subset of the CPC SW pool more accessible.

Otherwise any Oberon platform would be sufficient.

Regards,
Chris
CFB Software
http://www.cfbsoftware.com/gpcp