Oberon (TM) for MS-DOS Systems,  

Version 2.0 / 3.1, 1. 4. 93

Copyright (C) 1993 by Institut fuer Computersysteme ETH Zuerich





Introduction



Oberon is both a programming language and an operating environment. It is the 

final outcome of a research project whose aim was an extensible, highly 

integrated and compact  operating platform for single-user personal 

workstations.



The original project was launched and carried out by N. Wirth and J. Gutknecht 

for the Ceres workstation. Ported versions of the Oberon language and system 

are now available for numerous commercial machines, among them MacIntosh, IBM 

RS/6000, DEC station, SPARC station and IBM PC/386 compatibles.



Version 3 is an object-oriented evolution of the original system. It supports 

a generic mechanism for the management of end-user objects and comes with a 

graphical user interface called Gadgets (TM).



Literature



The following family of books on Oberon is available from Addison-Wesley 

company:



	The Oberon System- User Guide and Programmer's Manual,

		by M. Reiser



	Programming in Oberon- Steps beyond Modula-2,

		by M. Reiser and N. Wirth



	Project Oberon- The Design of an Operating System

		and Compiler, by N. Wirth and J. Gutknecht



A detailed user's and programmer's guide to the Gadgets system and a tool 

assisting with the migration to Version 3 are included in the online 

documentation.



MS-DOS Oberon



Oberon for IBM PC/386 compatibles is henceforth called MS-DOS Oberon. Even 

though MS-DOS Oberon is highly congruent with the original system as described 

in the above listed literature, there are some preconditions and 

implementation specialties to know. The following sections summarize these 

points. They also include a summary of principles of operation and an 

installation guide.



Hardware Requirements



	1) Intel 80386DX- or 80386SX-processor

	2) 2 megabytes or more of main memory

	3) mouse with 2 or 3 buttons and driver

	4) VGA-board



Software Requirements



	1) DOS version 3.3 or 5.0 

	2) HIMEM.SYS driver for extended memory access



Disclaimer



Permission to use, copy, modify or distribute this software and its 

documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without fee, provided  that 

the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that copyright 

notice and this permission notice appear in supporting documentation, and that 

the name of ETH not be used in advertising or  publicity pertaining to 

distribution of the software without specific, written prior permission.



ETH disclaims all warranties with regard to this software, including all 

implied special, indirect or consequential damages or any damages whatsoever 

resulting from loss of use, data or profits, whether in an action of contract, 

negligence or other tortious action, arising out of or in connection with the 

use or performance of this software.



Contact Address



MS-DOS Oberon

Institute for Computer Systems

ETH Zentrum

CH-8092 Zuerich



E-mail: Oberon@inf.ethz.ch 

E-Fax: +41 1 2519678



Acknowledgement



The MS-DOS Oberon project has partly been supported by IBM research 

laboratory, Rueschlikon Switzerland. It has been carried out by A. R. Disteli.





Principles of Operation and Installation Guide



Mode of Operation



MS-DOS Oberon principally operates in 386 protected mode in high memory above 

1 MB. Below the 1 MB limit are video-RAM, extender, system loader, Oberon 

kernel and the procedure activation stack. The extender handles interrupts and 

DOS system calls. It also bootstraps the Oberon module loader and starts the 

Oberon system.



Restriction



Currently, no other software running in protected mode or V86 mode must be 

installed simultaneously with Oberon. This restriction applies in particular 

to expanded memory managers like EMM386. Also SMARTDRIVE should not be 

installed.



File System



MS-DOS Oberon maintains its own DOS file directory. It contains all Oberon 

files that are created at Oberon run-time. Note that Oberon file names may be 

up to 31 characters long and may contain an arbitrary number of part-

separators ".". Oberon translates such file names internally into aliasing DOS 

file names and maintains a translation table.



In addition, Oberon offers commands System.CopyFromDOS and System.CopyToDOS, 

allowing file copy from arbitrary DOS directories to Oberon and vice versa.



Template:  System.CopyFromDOS a:/MyDir/Filename.Ext => Oberonname~



Diskettes



Data transfer from and to diskettes is supported by module Backup. Data on 

Oberon diskettes are stored in a private format that supports full Oberon file 

names. Use commands SetDriveA and SetDriveB to set the current drive.



Keyboard



The following table shows how to generate special characters under Oberon 

control.



special character	key



mark viewer	F1	(* Setup *)

no scroll	F2	(* used in program Draw *)

double s	F7

escape	ESC



ae	ctrl-a

oe	ctrl-o

ue	ctrl-u

Ae	F8

Oe	F9

Ue	F10



ctrl-shift-del	ctrl-break	(* keyboard interrupt *)



If the appropriate keyboard driver is installed, ae, oe, ue, Ae, Oe, Ue and 

double-s can also be typed directly.



Mouse



The standard Oberon user interface is based on a 3-button mouse and on the 

following interpretation of button clicks:



Primary clicks:



    left: set caret

    middle: execute

    right: select



Interclicks while selecting (holding down the right button):



   left: delete selected data 

   middle: copy selected data to caret

   left & middle: undo interclick



Alternatively, interclicking left/middle can be replaced by pressing ctrl-

key/alt-key on the keyboard.



Preverably install a Logitech Mouse Driver V6.0 (Included in this release 

named MOUSE.COM). MS-DOS Oberon also supports a 2-button mouse. In this case, 

the left button subsumes the functions execute and set caret. To switch from 

execute to set caret, keep the mouse still and the button pressed for ca. 0.5 

sec.



Display



MS-DOS Oberon by default assumes a VGA display interface with a resolution of 

640 * 480 * 16. However, support is also provided for the ET4000 Super-VGA 

standard with a resolution of 1024 * 768 * 256. In order to activate the Super-

VGA support, simply open ET4000.Tool, execute the renaming command and restart 

Oberon.



Printing



DOS-Oberon currently supports Postscript and HP PCL printing. To that purpose, 

different drivers are available: The HP500 printer family and Postscript. 

These drivers assume that an appropriate printer device is connected to one of 

the parallel ports LPT1 or LPT2 or the serial ports COM1 or COM2 with 9600 

baud for Postscript printers and 19200 baud for HP printers. If no suitable 

printer is installed, a printfile (Document.Print) is generated on the local 

disk. Simply open Printer.Tool in Oberon, execute the renaming command and 

restart Oberon.





System Installation and Operation



The installation kit consists of the following files:



	name                contents



	README.TXT    this description

	SYSTEM.EXE     Oberon system in compressed form (selfextracting file)

	CHANGES.TXT   Changes since the last release



to install Oberon



	1) assert FILES = 64 in CONFIG.SYS

	2) create new directory

	3) copy SYSTEM.EXE into new directory

	4) execute SYSTEM.EXE



to load and start Oberon



	5) install mouse driver

	6) set directory containing the Oberon system to current directory

	7) execute START command



System Exit



	8) Activate command System.Quit



Getting started with Oberon



The above mentioned book The Oberon System- User Guide and Programmer's Manual 

is a complete and comprehensive guide to the basic Oberon system. In addition, 

online documentation for the Gadgets system is included in the installation 

kit, as well as some sample source code files. See the different tools for 

prepared opening commands.





List of installed Oberon packages



 Program packages



	Basic system

	Compiler

	Edit	program editor

	Paint	picture editor

	

	Script (V3) /Write (V2)	text editor

	Illustrate (V3) /Draw (V2)	graphic editor

	Gadgets (V3 only)



Program samples in source form



	Biorhythm.Mod	calculates biorythm

	RandomNumbers.Mod	generates good random numbers

	IFS.Mod	generates fractal fern graphic



Online documentation



	ReadMe.Text	this text

	OberonGuide.Text  

	GadgetsGuide.Text	Version 3 user's and programmer's guide



Fonts



	Courier	monospace font

	Syntax	proportional text font

	Elektra	general symbols

	Math	mathematical symbols




