[Oberon] Acronyms and Versions

[jwr at robrts.net]

In December I purchased an OberonStation, and am currently trying to  
understand which implementations of Oberon (in addition to that of  
Project Oberon 2013) are also valuable to obtain and study.  I  
reviewed the last four years of messages on this list, and am still  
somewhat confused.  Perhaps it is useful to contribute summaries of  
acronyms and versions which others on this list can help correct and  
refine.

In http://lists.inf.ethz.ch/pipermail/oberon/2016/008750.html Peter  
Easthope states “A glossary containing some of these commonly bandied  
names and acronyms would be helpful.”
In http://lists.inf.ethz.ch/pipermail/oberon/2015/008219.html Dieter  
Gloetzel says: “Is there anywhere a list of abbreviations? e.g. "LNO"  
or "OLR". I have difficulties following the discussions.”

At http://lists.inf.ethz.ch/pipermail/oberon/2016/008763.html Srinivas  
Nayak asks “Which version of Oberon I should look at? Oberon-7 or  
Active Oberon or Concurrent Oberon or ?” and Bob Walkden answers “Why  
not look at them all?”.  I think it's hard to look at them “all”  
because there are so many variations, it is difficult to enumerate  
them.  Also it is somewhat unclear which involve versions of the  
language, which involve versions of the system implementation, which  
involve different experimental or useful versions of tools and  
applications, and which are versions identifying distributions for  
different underlying hardware and OS platforms. It is also difficult  
to identify which particular ones contain the most useful or most  
important components to study.  Perhaps with help from the experts on  
this list, we can more fully enumerate the versions, and identify what  
is unique and useful or special about each one.

Here is a summary of acronyms and version names I have gleaned from  
various messages and sources. Please provide feedback and corrections  
as appropriate.

ALO   ARM Linux Oberon (Oberon in LNO family, for ARM CPU eg Raspberry Pi)
ETHO  ETH Oberon  (ETH is Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich)
LEO   Linux ETH Oberon	[ETHO 2.4.3 for Linux x86]
LNO   Linux Native Oberon
NO    Native Oberon
OCP   Oberon Community Platform
OLR   Oberon Linux Revival

Is ETH-Linux-Oberon the same as LEO or LNO? (Probably it is LEO.)
Is Linux-ETH-Oberon the same as LEO?  Same as ETH-Linux-Oberon?
	See https://lists.inf.ethz.ch/pipermail/oberon/2015/007996.html
	and https://lists.inf.ethz.ch/pipermail/oberon/2008/005410.html

BB    BlackBox Component Builder, Component Pascal IDE
	from Oberon Microsystems, http://www.oberon.ch/blackbox.html
CP    Component Pascal
	[A dialect in the Oberon family most similar to Oberon-2]

AOS        Active Object System (2003)
UnixAOS    Unix-based AOS
WinAOS     Windows-based AOS
Bluebottle New system based on AOS kernel (2005)
A2         New system after Bluebottle (2008)
	See http://www.oberon.ethz.ch/ for AOS/Bluebottle/A2 history
Crazy-Fresh Bluebottle [see http://www.ethoberon.ethz.ch/]
Crazy-Fresh A2 [see http://sourceforge.net/projects/a2oberon/files/]

-----
The following appear to be versions of the language definition itself.
In another message another day I plan to identify documentation for each.

Original Oberon (1987/88/90)
Revised Oberon (1992)   [later called Oberon-07]
Oberon-2 is a compatible superset of Revised Oberon (1992)
Oberon-07 is a new language based on Oberon and Oberon-SA
	See http://oberon07.com/ and http://oberon07.com/FAQ.xhtml
	See https://www.inf.ethz.ch/personal/wirth/Oberon/Oberon07.pdf
	See https://www.inf.ethz.ch/personal/wirth/Oberon/Oberon07.Report.pdf
Project Oberon (1992) Ceres-based NS32032 implementation of Revised Oberon
	see http://www.ethoberon.ethz.ch/WirthPubl/ProjectOberon.pdf
Project Oberon (2013) FPGA-based RISC5 implementation of Oberon-07
	see http://www.projectoberon.com/ and
	https://www.inf.ethz.ch/personal/wirth/
Oakwood Guidelines for Oberon-2 Compiler Developers

-----
Other names found for various Oberon implementations and versions include:

Oberon S3 = Oberon System 3   (Became ETH Oberon)
Oberon V4  (Associated with both ETH and University of Linz)
	See http://sourceforge.net/projects/oberon/ and
	http://www.ssw.uni-linz.ac.at/Research/Projects/Oberon.html
See http://users.cms.caltech.edu/~cs140/140a/Oberon/system_faq.html for
	Oberon = V1 ( V2 V4 | System3 )
	Oberon V1     [Original Oberon??]
	Oberon V2     [??]
	Oberon V4     [Started at ETH, more development at University of Linz]
	Oberon System3  [Became ETH Oberon]

Native Oberon  [Based on ETH Oberon]
	(see http://www.oberon.ethz.ch/downloads/index for current versions)
	(see http://www.oberon.ethz.ch/archives/systemsarchive/native_new)
	PC Native Oberon [for Intel-compatible PCs]
	PC Native Oberon for Dummies [for Windows installation]
	Linux-based Native Oberon [LNO]
	SharkOberon [for DEC Shark Network Computers, ARM-based]
	Native Oberon Alpha [http://www.oberon.ethz.ch/faq/faqnativealfabeta]
	Native Oberon Beta [see same link as Alpha]

Versions at http://www.oberon.ethz.ch/archives/languagearchive/genealogy
	Oberon
	Oberon-V
	Oberon X
	Active Oberon
	Oberon-SA
	Active Oberon for .NET
	Object Oberon
	Oberon-2
	Concurrent Oberon
	Action Oberon
	Oberon-D
	Component Pascal

Versions at http://www.ethoberon.ethz.ch/genealsys.html not already above
	SPARC-Oberon
	MacOberon
	DEC-Oberon
	RISC Oberon
	MS-DOS Oberon
	Chameleon Oberon
	HP-Oberon
	Oberon for Windows
	Spirit of Oberon
	Hybrid Oberon
	Oberon for Linux
	Oberon Linux PPC
	more versions named according to supporting OS?

-----
I have also seen terms Oberon-0 and Oberon0. Definitions may be:

Oberon-0  a particular Oberon language/compiler
	see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PL/0
Oberon0   implementation of an Oberon-0 compiler (?) or minimal Oberon  
system (?)
Oberon0.dsk  disk image for bootable Oberon0 installer
         (see  
http://sourceforge.net/projects/nativeoberon/files/nativeoberon/Oberon0%20boot%20disk/)

Another acronym observed is OP2, which is a Portable Oberon compiler  
by R Crelier

-- John Roberts