[Oberon] Pepino LX9, USB, and other hardware running OBERON

[Uwe Bannow]

I don't think the Oberon (system) inventors ever had teaching the function
and
implementation of USB (interfaces) on their mind. Actually the USB interface
did not exist when the Oberon system was first implemented (in the early
80s).

Consider the USB interface link between the Pepino and the Pepino just as a
link or tunnel between the Oberon systems serial port and the PC, a black
box
as you described it. Actually the code behind the USB drivers on the PC and
the logic implementation of the FT2232H chip are far more complex than the
whole Oberon system ;)

If you want to learn about and understand FPGAs and the implementation of
CPUs/MCUs on FPGAs I suggest to take a look at at the Pappilio boards
of Gadget Factory ... there are some real good tutorials on FPGAs and
implementing systems on FPGAs, in particular the free "Introducing the
Spartan
3E FPGA and VHDL" by Mike Fields which can be obtained including the
examples
from https://github.com/hamsternz/IntroToSpartanFPGABook.


Cheers - Uwe Bannow

2016-02-15 14:11 GMT+01:00 Lars <noreply at z505.com>:

> On Mon, February 15, 2016 4:52 am, Chris Burrows wrote:
>
> > See my previous message today about using a USB bridge for serial
> > transfers. Also, the Pepino can use both USB and JTAG for configuring the
> > FPGA
> > hardware. These additional hardware capabilities are transparent to the
> > operating system. Project Oberon just has to deal with the simple RS232
> > protocol.
>
> So essentially it's a blackbox abstracted away, out of site, out of mind,
> and you don't "learn" about USB? i.e. hiding it under the rug, pretending
> it's RS232 when in fact there is a USB blackbox somewhere in there...
>
> I'm okay with this, just wondering why Wirth is okay with that or Oberon
> folk are okay with it. I could also have it completely wrong.  i.e. at
> some point the USB has to be abstracted away and hidden from site, in
> order for oberon to work with usb without knowing much about usb - so in
> some sense it is a black box.  But how is that any different from a rasp
> pi with usb that no one really understands fully. are we just moving goal
> posts here and pretending this is an "ethical" usb choice?
>
> It seems to be the ethics of oberon is that you have to understand all
> parts of the system.  Can you fully understand the Pepino USB system or is
> it just a hardwared blackbox?
>
> Sorry for my ignorance, I'm still in the research stages of seeing how
> Pepino actually works. FPGA's are also quite confusing.
>
> >
> > We support five different RISC5 systems (including the Spartan-3 Starter
> > Kit
> > which is now only available second-hand) altogether. They are listed with
> > URLs linking to more information at:
> >
> >
> > http://www.astrobe.com/RISC5
>
>
> Thanks, it's helpful.
>
> Regards
> --
> Oberon at lists.inf.ethz.ch mailing list for ETH Oberon and related systems
> https://lists.inf.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/oberon
>
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