Oberon (operating system)#Plugin Oberon and slim binaries

The Oberon operating system originated as part of the NS32032-based Ceres workstation project. It was written almost entirely (and in the 2013 version entirely is valid) in the Oberon programming language.[http://www.ethoberon.ethz.ch/WirthPubl/ProgInOberonWR.pdf M. Reiser and N. Wirth: Programming in Oberon] Addison-Wesley/ACM Press (1992) {{ISBN|0-201-56543-9}}. Out of print.

The basic system was designed and implemented by Niklaus Wirth and Jürg Gutknecht and its design and implementation is fully documented in their book "Project Oberon".[https://inf.ethz.ch/personal/wirth/ProjectOberon1992.pdf N. Wirth and J. Gutknecht: Project Oberon - The Design of an Operating System and Compiler] Addison-Wesley/ACM Press (1992) {{ISBN|0-201-54428-8}}. Out of print. [http://www.inf.ethz.ch/personal/wirth/ProjectOberon/ Online version of the second edition (2013)]. The user Interface and programmers reference is found in Martin Reiser's book "The Oberon System".Reiser, Martin: "The Oberon System - User Guide and Programmer's Manual" - Out-of-print - Addison-Wesley/ACM Press (1991) {{ISBN|0-201-54422-9}} The Oberon System was later extended and ported to other hardware platformsA. R. Disteli, Oberon for PC on an MS-DOS base, Technical Report #203 der ETH Zurich, November 1993, [http://e-collection.library.ethz.ch/eserv/eth:3801/eth-3801-01.pdf Reprint].

J. Supcik, HP-Oberon, Technical Report #212 of the ETH Zurich, November 1993, [http://e-collection.library.ethz.ch/eserv/eth:3931/eth-3931-01.pdf Reprint].

M. Franz, MacOberon Reference Manual, Technical Report #142 der ETH Zurich, November 1993, [http://e-collection.library.ethz.ch/eserv/eth:3278/eth-3278-01.pdf Reprint].

J. Templ, Design and implementation of SPARC-Oberon. Structured Programming, 12, 197–205 (1991).

M. Brandis, R. Crelier, M. Franz, J. Templ, The Oberon System Family. Software-Practice and Experience, Vol. 25(12), 1331–1366, December 1995. Also: [http://e-collection.library.ethz.ch/eserv/eth:3424/eth-3424-01.pdf Technical Report 174] of the ETH Zurich.

by a team at ETH Zurich and there was recognition in popular magazines.R. Gerike, Wider den Schnickschnack. Oberon System, Teil 1: Anwendersicht. c't 1994 (2) p. 180, Teil 2: Technische Einblicke. c't 1994 (3), p. 240 (German language).

H. Marais, Oberon System 3, Dr. Dobb's Journal, October 1994, [http://www.drdobbs.com/architecture-and-design/oberon-system-3/184409324 pages 42-50].

{{Cite magazine |last=Pountain |first=Dick |date=May 1993 |title=Oberon: A Glimpse at the Future |magazine=Byte |volume=18 |issue=5 |page=111ff |url=https://archive.org/stream/BYTE-1993-05#page/n124/mode/1up |via=Archive.org}}

{{Cite magazine |last=Pountain |first=Dick |date=March 1991 |title=Modula's Children, Part II: Oberon |magazine=Byte |volume=16 |issue=3 |pages=135–142 |url=https://archive.org/stream/byte-magazine-1991-03/1991_03_BYTE_16-03_Network_Management#page/n187/ |via=Archive.org}}

{{Cite magazine |last=Pountain |first=Dick |date=January 1995 |title=The Oberon/F System |magazine=Byte |volume=20 |issue=1 |page=227f |url=https://vintageapple.org/byte/pdf/199501_Byte_Magazine_Vol_20-01_Small_Office_Big_Business.pdf |via=Vintage Apple}}

{{Cite magazine |last=Börner |first=T. |date=March 1999 |title=Betriebssysteme: Native Oberon für den PC |magazine=Chip |page=131ff |language=de}}

Wirth and Gutknecht (although being active computer science professors) refer to themselves as 'part-time programmers' in the book Project Oberon. In late 2013, a few months before his 80th birthday, Wirth published a second edition of Project Oberon.{{cite web |url=https://lists.inf.ethz.ch/pipermail/oberon/2013/006922.html |title=[Oberon] Project Oberon, 2013 Edition |last=Reed |first=Paul |date=21 December 2013 |access-date=13 February 2021}} It details implementing the Oberon System using a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) CPU of his own design realized on a Xilinx field-programmable gate array (FPGA) board. It was presented at the symposium{{cite AV media |last=Wirth|first=Niklaus |date=20 February 2014 |title=Niklaus Wirth Birthday Symposium |access-date=13 February 2021 |url=https://video.ethz.ch/conferences/2014/wirth/d40b0ce9-b9fa-4ba3-8dee-cf9d0c6f01a4.html |website=ETH Zurich}} organized for his 80th birthday at ETH Zurich. In the meantime, several emulators for this version were implemented.

{{cite web |url=https://github.com/pdewacht/oberon-risc-emu |title=Oberon RISC Emulator |last=De Wachter |first=Peter |date=18 August 2020 |website=GitHub |access-date=13 February 2021}}

{{cite web |url=https://schierlm.github.io/OberonEmulator/ |title=Project Oberon emulator in JavaScript and Java |last=Schierl |first=Michael |date=19 January 2021 |website=GitHub |access-date=13 February 2021}}

{{cite web |url=https://github.com/MGreim/ultiboberon |title=Port of the Oberon RISC Emulator to [Ultibo] |last=Greim |first=Markus |date=14 August 2016 |website=GitHub |access-date=13 February 2021}}

{{cite web |url=https://github.com/fzipp/oberon |title=Project Oberon emulator in Go |date=18 September 2021 |website=GitHub |access-date=13 February 2021}}

{{cite web |url=http://www.reactive-instruments.eu/ |title=Oberon Workstation |last=de Jong |first=Roel P. |date=19 October 2018 |website=Reactive Instruments |access-date=13 February 2021}}

According to Josef Templ, a former member of the developer group at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and later member of the Institut für Systemsoftware of Johannes Kepler University Linz, where one forked version (V4) was maintained, the genealogy of the different versions of the Oberon System is this:

Oberon has a text user interface (TUI), which is very different from a terminal user interface. It combines the point and click convenience of a graphical user interface (GUI) with the linguistic strength of a command-line interface (CLI) and is closely tied to the naming conventions of the Oberon language. Text appearing almost anywhere on a screen can be edited and used as command input. Commands are activated by a middle-mouse clickUsing the mouse and the keyboard https://web.archive.org/web/20171225160628/http://www.ethoberon.ethz.ch/ethoberon/tutorial/Mouse.contents.html on a text fragment of the form Module.Command (optionally followed by parameters, which are terminated by ~). A command is defined by any procedure which is exported and has an empty argument list. Parameters to the command must be defined before executing the middle click, and must be explicitly scanned and retrieved by the procedure. No checks or questions occur during command execution. This is sometimes called a non-modal user interface (UI). Nothing like a command prompt is needed.

Although very different from a command line, the TUI is very efficient and powerful.{{cite encyclopedia |last=Franz |first=Michael |title=Oberon: The Overlooked Jewel |citeseerx=10.1.1.90.7173 |editor1-first=Lászlo |editor1-last=Böszörmény |editor2-first=Jürg |editor2-last=Gutknecht |editor2-link=Jürg Gutknecht |editor3-first=Gustav |editor3-last=Pomberger |encyclopedia=The School Niklaus Wirth: The Art of Simplicity |publisher=Morgan Kaufmann Publishers |year=2000 |pages=41–53 |isbn=1-55860-723-4}} A steep ascent in the early learning curve makes it a bit difficult at first. No questions are asked: this is a deliberate design decision, which needs getting used to. Most editors ask the user when closing a modified text: this is not the case in the Oberon System. The use of the TUI and programming interface is fully documented in Martin Reiser's book "The Oberon System". A short introduction to the user interface can be found on Niklaus Wirth's home page.{{Cite web |url=https://www.inf.ethz.ch/personal/wirth/ProjectOberon/UsingOberon.pdf |title=How to use the Oberon System |last=Wirth |first=Niklaus |author-link=Niklaus Wirth |date=2015 |access-date=24 November 2016}} The later Versions of System Oberon, Oberon V4 (V4, sometimes also named Linz-Oberon) and Oberon System 3 (or S3, sometimes also named ETH-Oberon or Spirit of Oberon), enhanced the basic interface with different but incompatible implementations for buttons, drop down menus, and other active elements. V4 used for that purpose a dedicated control character embedded in normal text in contrast to System 3, which extended the kernel by introducing persistent objects. Both extensions include a large set of user interface elements.

Mastering the Oberon user interface, both the purely textual and the so-called Gadgets System (under S3), is non-trivial. Thus, after successfully installing Oberon System 3, it is recommended to study André Fischers [https://web.archive.org/web/20171225160628/http://www.ethoberon.ethz.ch/ethoberon/tutorial Oberon System 3 Tutorial]. An expanded version of this tutorial was published as a book,André Fischer & Hannes Marais: The Oberon Companion. A Guide to Using and Programming Oberon System 3. vdf Hochschulverlag AG (1997). {{ISBN|978-3728124937}}, out of print, but see notes in Getting Started section of the Oberon Wikibook which it is out of print now. The whole book is available in electronic form under a one user license in every installed version of System 3 (Windows, Linux, or Native, i.e., also with the Gadgets toolkit of OLR{{Cite web |url=http://oberon.wikidot.com/ |title=Oberon Linux Revival |last=Matthias |first=Peter |access-date=31 August 2016}}). More information how to get your own copy of the Oberon Companion may be found in the Getting Started section of the Oberon Wikibook.

Similar user Interfaces have yet to appear in more commonplace operating systems. Rob Pike's Acme system for Plan 9 from Bell Labs was strongly inspired by the Oberon TUI. Whether the worksheet interface of the Macintosh Programmer's Workshop influenced Oberon's TUI or vice versa is difficult to decide: the Oberon System was based on Wirth's prior computer design, the Lilith, and both the Apple Macintosh (and its precursor Lisa) and the Oberon System (on Ceres and its precursor Lilith) have the same roots: they were all inspired by the Alto developed at Xerox PARC.

V1 was the first usable version some time before the Oberon Trilogy was published. A major change in the text model together with the editor named Write yielded V2. As foreshadowed in the table in section History above, there was a major fork in the early 1990s: V4 vs. System 3: The group around Jürg Gutknecht introduced persistent objects and object-libraries thereby extending the kernel. The group around Hanspeter Mössenböck realized similar features by introducing active elements mapped to a special character thereby extending fonts without changing the kernel. System 3 was sometimes also named Spirit of Oberon and later renamed ETH Oberon, whereas V4 was sometimes also named Linz Oberon.

File:XO.A2.Oberon.jpg on an XO-1.5.]] As of 2017, the Oberon OS is available for several hardware computing platforms, generally in no cost versions and from several sources, which is quite confusing. The Oberon OS is typically extremely compact. Even with an Oberon compiler, assorted utilities including a web browser, TCP/IP networking, and a GUI, the full package can be compressed to one 3.5" floppy disk. There are versions which emulated the Oberon OS on another operating system and versions which run on bare hardware. The latter ones are named Native Oberon. There are native versions for the Ceres, Intel IA-32, and ARM platforms. In 2013, Niklaus Wirth adapted the basic system as described in "Project Oberon" to a current FPGA design. According to the preface of the 2013 edition, the whole system compiles in less than 10 seconds on a Spartan-3 board. This version is sometimes also named V5, despite it being much more similar functionally to the original V1 running on the Ceres than any of the later versions.

A version of the Oberon System 3, which is more integrated in the Microsoft Windows OS than other implementations was named Plugin Oberon.{{Cite web |url=http://e-collection.library.ethz.ch/eserv/eth:26257/eth-26257-02.pdf |title=Fine-grained integration of Oberon into Windows using pluggable objects |last=Zeller |first=Emil Johann |date=2002}} Plugin Oberon had support for OLE, Netscape Plugins, and the binary format named Oberon Module Interchange (OMI) or slim binaries, which allowed portable object code between Intel x86, Motorola 68K, and PowerPC architectures. Slim binaries were invented by Michael Franz in the early 1990s. They were motivated and opposed to the fat binaries invented by Apple during the transition from 68k to PowerPC architectures.{{Cite book |last=Franz |first=Michael |date=1 March 1994 |title=Code-Generation On-the-Fly: A Key to Portable Software |publisher=Verlag der Fachvereine Hochschulverlag AG an der ETH Zurich |location=Zürich |isbn=978-3728121158}} OMI provided portable code based on a compressed version of the abstract syntax tree. The approach of a compressed abstract syntax tree for portable code representation is revived in the Java world for GraalVM and Truffle.

The version named Oberon V4 (see also History) is closer to the original operating system developed by Wirth and Gutknecht. It was originally developed at ETHZ, but when H.P. Mössenböck went to [http://www.ssw.uni-linz.ac.at/Oberon.html Institut für Systemsoftware at Johannes-Kepler University in Linz (JKU)], the development of V4 moved also. Thus, V4 is sometimes also called Linz-Oberon in contrast to ETH-Oberon. The most recent version of V4 and extensions are available at [http://www.ssw.uni-linz.ac.at/Oberon.html JKU]. Oberon V4 appears to be orphaned, there are almost no changes since 2000. Another repository of V4 is Claudio Nieder's [http://www.claudio.ch/V4/ Oberon V4], which also shows difference between the different V4 implementations. Since 2013 this page moved to/is mirrored at [http://sourceforge.net/projects/oberon/ SourceForge]. V4 is closer to what would now be called an integrated development environment than an operating system of its own. There were many extensions written for V4, which are still available from the [ftp://ftp.ssw.uni-linz.ac.at/pub/Oberon/LinzTools/ ftp server of SSW at JKU]; some documentation can be found on their [http://www.ssw.uni-linz.ac.at/Research/Projects/OberonDownloads.html web-pages], more information is normally included in the packages and it is given in Oberon's special rich text format.

{{Main|A2 (operating system)}}

Around 2010, the computer science department at ETH Zurich began exploring active objects and concurrency for operating systems, and has released an early version of a new language Active Oberon and a new operating system for it, first named Active Object System (AOS) in 2002, then due to trademark issues, renamed Bluebottle in 2005, then renamed A2 in 2008. It is available from ETH Zurich with most source via the Internet. Native versions of A2 run on single- and multi-processor IA-32 and x86-64 hardware, both on bare metal and inside virtual machines. It was previously also available for the StrongARM CPU family. Versions which execute as programs under other operating systems are available on Windows (WinAos), Unix (UnixAos), Linux (LinuxAos), and macOS (DarwinAos). More detailed information about A2 is on the Russian Wikipedia pages about A2.

File:Oberon A2Desktop Screen.png

As a part of an industrial research project[http://nativesystems.inf.ethz.ch/Main/WebHomeResearchStaila stailaOS (ETHZ) Project Page] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111004170705/http://www.nativesystems.inf.ethz.ch/Main/WebHomeResearchStaila |date=2011-10-04}}

the Native Systems Group of ETH Zurich has developed an application-specific operating system named stailaOS which is based on the latest version Oberon OS. It is intended for uses such as real-time analytics, financial applications, main memory based enterprise resource planning (ERP), etc.

File:Oberon0UnderQEMU.png in Debian Wheezy. The presentation of the partition table illustrates the comprehensibility of the system in general.]]

Native Oberon is an Oberon System that runs on bare hardware.[ftp://ftp.ethoberon.ethz.ch/ETHOberon/Native/StdAlone/ Archives of the Oberon Website]. PC-Native Oberon is a version that runs on IA-32 PC hardware. There has never been a V4 Native Oberon, so all information in this section implicitly assumes that it is System 3. Native Oberon has small hardware requirements: 133 MHz Pentium, 100MB hard disk, VESA 2 graphics card with resolution minimum of 1024x768 pixels, optional 3Com network card. The basic system runs from one HD floppy disk, and more software can be installed through a network. The full installation includes the Gadgets GUI. It is written fully in the language Oberon. The latest available version was 2.3.7. It is dated 5. January 2003 and sometimes also labeled as Update/Alpha, especially on the ftp-server of ETHZ. Later versions were incorporated in AOS/BlueBottle/A2.

A version named Linux Native Oberon (LNO) uses Linux as a hardware abstraction layer (HAL). Its goal is to be as compatible as possible to PC-Native Oberon. Other versions of the Oberon System, without Native in the name, had partly modified interfaces of low level modules. In 2015, Peter Matthias revitalized LNO under the name Oberon Linux Revival (OLR) as a multi-platform distribution running seamlessly on Intel x86, ARM, MIPS, and RISC-V. It runs well on the Raspberry Pi and on the low cost (discontinued) CHIP computer; with some tweaking (adjusting group membership or/and permissions on some devices) it runs well on Tiny Core Linux. OLR interfaces with Linux kernel by direct system calls. {{As of|2017|06}}, OLR lacks a network layer.

In 2013, Wirth and Paul Reed completed a re-implementation of the original Oberon System for the Digilent Xilinx Spartan 3 FPGA Starter Board. The work includes a revision of "Project Oberon", identified as [http://www.inf.ethz.ch/personal/wirth/ProjectOberon/ Project Oberon (New Edition 2013)]. In 2015, Reed collaborated with Victor Yurkovsky to create [https://web.archive.org/web/20180102133953/http://oberonstation.x10.mx/ OberonStation], a Xilinx Spartan 3-based computer designed specifically to run Oberon. The system has since been ported to a Xilinx Spartan 6 FPGA Pepino development board by [http://www.saanlima.com/pepino/index.php?title=Pepino_Oberon Saanlima Electronics], and a Xilinx Artix 7-based [https://reference.digilentinc.com/reference/programmable-logic/nexys-a7/start Digilent Nexys A7-100 FPGA Trainer board] by [https://www.astrobe.com/RISC5/Workstation.htm CFB Software]. Peter de Wachter implemented an [https://github.com/pdewacht/oberon-risc-emu emulator] for it, which was also ported to [https://github.com/schierlm/OberonEmulator/ Java and JavaScript] by Michael Schierl, running in [https://schierlm.github.io/OberonEmulator/emu.html?image=ExperimentalOberonDiskImage&width=1024&height=768 modern browsers], and ported to Free Pascal/[https://ultibo.org/ Ultibo] by [https://github.com/MGreim Markus Greim] and to [https://github.com/fzipp/oberon/ Go]. Andreas Pirklbauer maintains an [https://github.com/andreaspirklbauer/Oberon-experimental experimental version] and extensions of Project Oberon 2013 at GitHub.

File:TatungTWN5213Oberon.png|Oberon on a Tatung TWN-5213 CU tablet.

File:AndroidOberonV5.jpg|Oberon V5 RISC emulator on [https://github.com/corbinlc/GNURootDebian GNURoot Debian] on Android on an Alcatel 9015B tablet with keyboard and mouse connected by Bluetooth.

• A2 – Formerly Active Object System (AOS) in 2002, renamed Bluebottle in 2005 due to rumored copyright issues, renamed A2 in 2008.
• ALO – ARM Linux Oberon; in LNO family and for ARM CPU.
• AOS – see A2 entry above.
• BB – BlackBox Component Builder. Component Pascal IDE from [https://web.archive.org/web/20100726132147/http://www.oberon.ch/blackbox.html Oberon Microsystems].
• Bluebottle – see A2 entry above.
• CP – Component Pascal. A dialect in the Oberon family most similar to Oberon-2.
• ETHO – Oberon as developed at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich: Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH).
• Fox – The compiler for Active Oberon, appearing in AOS (see A2 entry above).{{Cite web |url=https://trac.inf.ethz.ch/trac/lecturers/a2/browser/trunk/source/Fox.Tool |title=Fox Tool |url-status=dead |access-date=19 March 2021 |archive-date=6 February 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180206073503/https://trac.inf.ethz.ch/trac/lecturers/a2/browser/trunk/source/Fox.Tool }}
• LEO – Linux ETH Oberon. ETHO 2.4.3 for Linux x86.
• LNO – Linux Native Oberon.
• NO – Native Oberon. Runs on bare hardware rather than on another operating system.
• OLR – Oberon Linux Revival. A version of NO which uses Linux as a HAL and runs on x86, ARM, and MIPS.
• OP2 – The Portable Oberon-2 Compiler. OP2 was developed to port Oberon onto commercially available platforms.{{cite web |url=https://www.research-collection.ethz.ch/handle/20.500.11850/141604 |title=Separate Compilation and Module Extension |last=Crelier |first=Régis |publisher=ETH Zurich |access-date=18 November 2018}}
• PACO – (scope) PArallel COmpiler. Appears in A2 (see entry above). Compiles each scope in an independent thread.
• PIO - Programming in Oberon.
• RISC5 – the central processing unit (CPU) of Project Oberon 2013 based on Wirth's RISC architecture.{{cite web |url=https://www.inf.ethz.ch/personal/wirth/FPGA-relatedWork/ |title=FPGA-related Work |last=Wirth |first=Niklaus |author-link=Niklaus Wirth |publisher=ETH Zurich |access-date=12 September 2016}} Not to be confused with RISC-V.
• UnixAOS – Unix-based AOS, see A2 entry above.
• WinAOS – Windows-based AOS, see A2 entry above.

• Oberon Wikibook
• A2 (operating system)
• Oberon (programming language)
• Oberon-2 programming language

{{Reflist}}

{{Wikibooks|Oberon}}

• {{Official website|www.ethoberon.ethz.ch}}, old ETH Oberon homepage, dead since Jan-2020, redirect to Archive.org: [https://web.archive.org/web/20191011164607/http://www.ethoberon.ethz.ch/ archived version]
• [http://wiki.c2.com/?OberonOperatingSystem Oberon article] on WikiWikiWeb
• Genealogy and History of the Oberon System [https://web.archive.org/web/20160327005821/http://www.oberon.ethz.ch/archives/systemsarchive/sys_genealogy_new version at archive.org]
• [http://www.ethoberon.ethz.ch/books.html Oberon Bibliography]

• [http://www.ethoberon.ethz.ch/compilers.html Oberon compilers.]
• Install ETH Oberon using QEMU
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20120808025107/http://bluebottle.ethz.ch/ BlueBottle/AOS/A2] An evolution of Native Oberon with support for Multiprocessor systems with Active Objects (kind of threads running on separate processors, if available) and a zooming user interface available {{as of|2020|03|04|lc=yes}} at ETH Zurich's [http://cas.inf.ethz.ch/projects/a2/ redmine] instance.
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20160603120030/http://www.oberon.ethz.ch/archives/systemsarchive/native_new Native Oberon Home Page redirected to Archive.org] (May 2016 - this site has broken URLs in the links to the ftp-Server; files were moved from ftp://ftp.inf.ethz.ch/pub/ETHOberon/ to ftp://ftp.ethoberon.ethz.ch/, on 10 March 2022 a mirror of that server is still available at [https://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/languages/oberon/ftp.inf.ethz.ch/ GWDG])
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20160603120030/http://www.oberon.ethz.ch/archives/systemsarchive/hw_new Native Oberon Hardware Compatibility redirected to archive.org]
• [http://easthope.ca/OberonUsage.html ETH PC Native Oberon, Usage Notes]
• [http://ignco.de/91 Lukas Mathis' Blog about Oberon] A nice trace back to the history of user interfaces and Oberon.
• [http://www.ssw.uni-linz.ac.at/Oberon.html Oberon V4 main page at] Johannes Kepler University Linz
• [http://sourceforge.net/projects/oberon/ Oberon V4 Sources] Collected sources for different V4 implementations at SourceForge and Oberon V4 for Linux, more information in the corresponding [https://sourceforge.net/p/oberon/wiki/Home/ wiki].
• [http://www.projectoberon.com/ http://www.projectoberon.com/, Project Oberon.]
• [https://github.com/andreaspirklbauer/Oberon-experimental Experimental Oberon]
• [https://github.com/AlexIljin/WinOberon WinOberon aka Plugin Oberon] Version 2.6 as provided by Emil Zeller to Alexander Illjin around 2010
• [http://www.ethoberon.ethz.ch/ethoberon/tutorial/ Oberon System 3 Tutorial] by André Fischer (1997), [https://web.archive.org/web/20181213130926/http://www.ethoberon.ethz.ch/ethoberon/tutorial/ archived version]

{{Modula, Oberon}}

{{Wirth}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Oberon (Operating System)}}

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