[Oberon] Oberon Digest, New Issue, ORL

[Paul Reed]

Hi Daniel,

On 2026-11-09 12:23, Daniel Schmid | DSI wrote:
> Does anybody have (an idea of) a separat linker module for Oberon
> (2013/16) e.g. ORL.Mod which compiles with ORP.Compile on PDWs Norebo
> tiny emulator?
> It's about to get a scripted tool to compile/link/upload to the (CC A1)
> FPGA.

ORL was a cross-linker from Prof. Wirth's Windows Oberon system to the 
Spartan 3 FPGA board. It was similar to Modules, but with a base offset 
added or subtracted to the address arithmetic (and the module body calls 
removed) to build the Inner Core in a buffer and then write to a disk 
file, where it was then transferred over a serial line.

To link a new Inner Core on the system itself, the actual Modules.Mod 
can be used, with a bit of tweaking in order to load the Inner Core 
modules again in memory and then write them out. I do this in a VM to 
build a new system. (Which is kind of self-hosted and cross-linking at 
the same time.) :)

However, all of this self-hosted compiling and linking gets quite 
complicated on a real system, especially if the module interfaces change 
(ie symbol files change). So one advantage of cross-compiling and 
linking is you can delete everything and build the world again. :)

I hope that helps, but I'm not sure whether you wish to link on the 
system under Peter de Wachter's oberon-risc-emu emulator, as per your 
first paragraph, or whether you want to use his Norebo to cross-link to 
the Cologne Chip GateMate A1 FPGA, as per your second.

Cheers,
Paul