#Titel Programmieren / Oberon / FAQ-General #Logo gadget16:Pinsel/AG.Prog #Font topaz 8 #C10 Subject: Comp.lang.oberon FAQ (monthly) Newsgroups: comp.lang.oberon,comp.answers,news.answers From: mikeg@psg.com (Mike Gallo) Date: Fri, 8 Apr 1994 12:04:31 GMT Archive-name: Oberon-FAQ/general #C21 (* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *) Many FAQ lists, including this one, are available by anonymous ftp from rtfm.mit.edu in the /pub/usenet/news-answers directory. Thanks to all who have contributed! Further additions, corrections, and suggestions are welcome. mikeg@psg.com (* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *) #C10 #Seitenende Comp.lang.oberon Frequently Asked Questions Miscellany #C21 Copyright 1994 Michael Gallo (c) 1994 Michael Gallo This is one of three documents that attempt to answer some frequently asked questions (FAQs) about Oberon. This text concerns some general topics on the subject of Oberon, while the other two are specifically about Oberon the language and Oberon the operating system. #Seitenende #C31 WHAT IS COMP.LANG.OBERON? #C21 The Comp.lang.oberon newsgroup is a forum for discussing Oberon, both the programming language and the operating system, and any related issues. Although not strictly accurate, this newsgroup is part of the Comp.lang.* hierarchy because it began as a spin-off of Comp.lang.modula2. For those without regular Usenet access, ETH Zürich has generously made Comp.lang.oberon available as a mailing list. Articles can now be sent or received via normal Internet e-mail to or from oberon-news@inf.ethz.ch. To get more information about the mailing list, send the message "help" to listproc@inf.ethz.ch. To subscribe to the mailing list, send the message "subscribe oberon-news@inf.ethz.ch " to listproc@inf.ethz.ch. Some members of ETH Zrich's Institute for Computer Systems do read and participate in this newsgroup, but Comp.lang.oberon is in no way officially related to ETH Zrich. Official correspondence, bug reports, &c. should be addressed to: #C10 Institute for Computer Systems ETH Zentrum CH-8092 Zuerich E-mail: Oberon@inf.ethz.ch E-Fax: +41 1 2519678 #C21 Comp.lang.oberon owes its existence to the efforts of the late Christian Schaepper. #Seitenende #C31 WHAT IS OBERON? #C21 From "The Oberon Guide" #C10 Oberon is simultaneously the name of a project and of its outcome. The project was started by Niklaus Wirth and [Jörg Gutknecht] late in 1985 with the goal of developing a modern and portable operating system for personal workstations. Its results are an implementation of the system for the Ceres computer and a programming language. The development of the language Oberon needs perhaps a short justification. It became quite inevitable because the type-system of available languages turned out to be too restrictive to express the desired data model in a natural and safe way. #C21 Easy introductions to both aspects of the Oberon project can be found in back issues of BYTE magazine. The operating system is overviewed in "Oberon: A Glimpse at the Future", volume 18 number 6 (May 1993). The Oberon language is examined in "Oberon", volume 16 number 3 (March 1991). Both articles are by BYTE's European correspondant, Dick Pountain. #Seitenende #C31 OBERON RESOURCES #C21 The original project was launched and carried out by N. Wirth and J. Gutknecht for the Ceres workstation. As of this writing, ported versions of the Oberon system are available for the Sun-SPARC, the Apple-Macintosh-II, the DECstation, the IBM RS/6000, Windows 3.1 and Windows NT for Intel 386, the Silicon Graphics Indigo, and the HP Apollo Series 700. Oberon System 3 has been ported to the Sun-SPARC and MS-DOS for Intel 386. These are freely available by anonymous ftp from: #C10 neptune.inf.ethz.ch:/Oberon, wuarchive.wustl.edu:/languages/Oberon, and gatekeeper@dec.com:/pub/plan/Oberon #C21 Whitney de Vries (whitney@christie.Meakins.McGill.CA) has set up an anonymous ftp server to handle Oberon sources. The machine is gallileo.meakins.mcgill.ca ( 132.206.169.3 ); the directory is /u/ftp/pub/Oberon. Another possible source of information is the Swiss Oberon Users Group (CHOUG) at ETH Zrich (e-mail: oberon-user@inf.ethz.ch). ETH Zürich's technical reports are freely available, but many of the reports concerning the Oberon project are now a few years old and out of print. However, most of these older reports are electronically available in PostScript and/or Oberon text formats from the previously mentioned ftp sites in */Oberon/Docu. Some more recent technical reports that might be of interest to Oberon users are #C10 133 J. Templ: SPARC-Oberon User's Guide 143 N. Wirth: From Modula to Oberon (Revised Edition) 144 J. L. Marais: The GADGETS User Interface Management System 151 C. Szyperski: Write - An Extensible Text Editor for the Oberon System 174 M. Brandis, R. Crelier, M. Franz, J. Templ: The Oberon System Family 203 A. R. Disteli: OBERON for PC on an MS-DOS Base #C21 Someone please let me know if/when these titles go out of stock. To order technical reports of the Institut für Computersysteme, ETH Zrich, contact Mr. Ruettener (e-mail: ruettener@inf.ethz.ch). #C10 -- A designer knows he has arrived at perfection not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away. -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery