Neither FORTH nor QL

[polka]

Some of you seem to be much interested in Pascal AND object orientation… on the QL ? Or on bigger machines QL oriented ? Even if it means cross-compilation ?

The Pascal stem was essentially the work of Niklaus Wirth who created :
Algol(1960),Pascal(1970),Modula2(1979),Oberon(1985),Oberon2(1992),BlackBox(1997)

Algol and Pascal were langages for structured programming, « only » langages !
Modula and Oberon were more than that : langages AND frameworks, indeed for two graphic workstations, respectively Lilith(16bits) and Ceres(32bits).

After a few years of programming experience with it, Oberon became definitively Oberon2 a TRUE object oriented integrated environment, which was ported on many other machines and even Microsoft Windows (till 3.1) under the name V4.

Since, Josef Templ, one of the students of Wirth revived V4 and added an Oberon to C translator called Ofront, then he translated the whole framework itself with this tool and compiled it for binding to Raspian and i386 Linux.

So, here we have a perfect Ceres emulator for the PI !

Let me quote him :

"This version of the Oberon system has been translated to C with Ofront,
compiled with a C compiler and linked with the underlying operating
system's linkage editor. Nevertheless, it looks and feels very much
like the original Oberon system."

On this Ceres workstation emulator fo Pi, you may program with the Object Oriented successor of Pascal, translate it to (almost) legible C and (maybe) move the C sources to compile on a QL (or more powerful equivalents). And eventually do the same as josef Templ : compile and bind the whole framework to Qdos ?

I will not do that, for me it’s enough to have a faithful Ceres emulator in my PI zero W and my PI 400.

Useful links :

http://software-templ.com/
https://rsdoiel.github.io/blog/2021/04/ ... Pi-OS.html

Bye ! POLKa

[Ruptor]

The Pascal stem was essentially the work of Niklaus Wirth who created :
Algol(1960),Pascal(1970),Modula2(1979),Oberon(1985),Oberon2(1992),BlackBox(1997)
Algol and Pascal were langages for structured programming, « only » langages !

Your post is interesting but once OO is mentioned I switch off. Is he a traitor for porting Pascal to C and going back in time trying to get the masses in America to use Oberon or perhaps it is an attempt to get rid of C based high level languages that could work if Oberon is more efficient?

[polka]

"... a traitor for porting Pascal to C ..." ?
No ! this is merely an emulator for the Ceres workstation (developped by Wirth at the ETH Zurich end 80s), comprising its operating system,its framework of dynamic modules and an Oberon compiler. So when you run it on a Pi (or elsewhere), you may interactively develop, compile and add new modules importing the services of any existing ones, and when you call them (just clicking on their name), they will load and bind themselves silently to the services that they need, which either are already present or are themselves recursively loaded as needed. And when modules are no longer needed, a garbage collector will automatically remove them.

Why Templ integrated a "plain old C" transpiler to Oberon, is to get code immediately suitable for any target with a C compiler and a standard C library-environment (maybe C68 on a QL too). So could he demonstrate-use this transpiler to port this Ceres emulator (already written in Oberon) to Pi-OS and i386 linux.

"...and going back in time..." ?
Yes ! I installed it on my Pi400 (and on my PiZero too), for the fun of retrocomputing, exactly for the same reason I still play with my QL or uQLx etc.

And why do I particularly like SuperBasic Forth and Oberon ?
1/ SuperBasic : because you can code modules, load and remove them interactively with MERGE MRUN DLINES instructions and run them simply by name (of course, with the interpreter).
2/ Forth : is NOT a RPN calculator, but an interactive tool for expressing your ideas in a conversation with a computer, teaching him new things and checking his understanding them.
At the time Charles Moore invented Forth (in the early 60s), it was the first interactive programming environment. At these times, programming was by batch or punched cards - compiling - linking - executing.
3/ Oberon : see my reasons above ! not because it claims to be OO : actually, they don't even pretend to, they just evolved Pascal and Modula to make out of them something simpler, but also more expressive and more teachable, Wirth's aims being to teach his students computer science best ways, not OO !

You should read the first chapter of this book : Programming in Oberon
(maybe the rest of the book too)

MODERATOR EDIT: Link to slightly suspicious PDF scan of a book still in copyright removed. If you are 100% certain that the Institute/University hosting the PDF has legal rights to do so, let me know and the link can be reinstated. Norm.

Bye ! POLKa

[polka]

Well, the link to download this book is on the home page of Prof. Wirth himself (with a lot of other very interesting documents he authored with his disciples).

Links removed again. Sorry. See below for details. (Separate post).

I saw elsewhere (but I will have to find it again) that these documents are made available in electronic form because they are out of print.

So, I don't see the issue ?

By the way, I bought this book in paperback myself, when I was first playing with Oberon V4 under Windows some thirty years ago.

For OO afficionados, there is another very interesting book that I also have in paperback, from Hanspeter Mössenbock, and that you find also in electronic form : "Object-Oriented Programming in Oberon 2". It details the real "why"s of OO (not limited to graphic interface elements).

But, I just wanted the OO sceptics here to read the first chapter of the book by Wirth, because it says that OO is not the goal of Oberon. True OO was met with Oberon2 by very small additions to the syntax of Oberon, finally yielding V4.

Bye, POLKa

[Ruptor]

"... a traitor for porting Pascal to C ..." ?
MODERATOR EDIT: Link to slightly suspicious PDF scan of a book still in copyright removed. If you are 100% certain that the Institute/University hosting the PDF has legal rights to do so, let me know and the link can be reinstated. Norm.

Without prejudice someone may have downloaded it already.
I learned to design code on punch cards using Algol68 & Fortran. The technique I have used ever since is called structured design that at the time was taught as having three elements, Concatenation, Decision and Loop. No language has ever just had these three simple elements they all do the same thing in many different ways but I limit myself to them particularly in assembler and even high level languages because it keeps things simple so in Pascal I only use IF THEN ELSE and WHILE structures.

[NormanDunbar]

So, I don't see the issue ?

No worries. The potential issue or issues are:

• That page is on what appears to be a university site. It may not actually be Professor Wirth's home page.
• That page might be only for students, not the general public. This does imply a security problem of course.
• Linking to potentially copyright material, from a public forum, could get us in a whole pile of trouble.

I'm happy to put the link back in if you can find the information that the book is freely available/in the public domain.

As for being out of print, the book is from 1992 and copyright is 70 years. The book is therefore still under copyright. If the publishers have reverted the copyright back to the authors, plural, the book is still under copyright.

Unless all authors have agreed to put the book out there for everyone, then it is not a legal copy that you linked to.

So, I apologise for being a pain in the backside,but unless we have written information that the book if freely available, the link must be removed. Sorry.

Do you know if archive.org has a copy to freely download?

Edit: I checked. It has a copy to borrow and printing is disabled, so I would be sure that the book is not freely available, 100% legally. (https://archive.org/details/programminginobe0000reis)

You can read some of the book there in the preview.

Cheers,
Norm.

[NormanDunbar]

Without prejudice someone may have downloaded it already.

True, but then that's a problem for those downloaders to ponder. There are copies of the book available on Amazon, https://www.amazon.co.uk/Programming-Ob ... ef=sr_1_12 so, it's not too expensive to get hold of a copy.

Plus, those people who already downloaded it, mightbe wise to not plaster their potential crime on a public forum -- if they had done so!

Cheers,
Norm.

[Derek_Stewart]

HI,

Could Oberon be ported to the QL?

[NormanDunbar]

Gents, can we please stop posting links to dodgy web sites offering free copies of PDF books. Thanks.

Unless the link is to Project Gutenberg, where lots of out of copyright and public domain books are legally available, or to archive.org which has books to lend, like a library, then the chances are, the web site is dodgy.

Take a look at the book dates, are they recent? If so, then the site is most likely not legal. Remember book are copyright for 70 years. Unless the publishers have reverted copyright to the author(s) and the author(s) have given written permission, then no web sites should, be offering them for download. The fact that these dodgy sites offer scanned copies should be a clue -- a legal site would surely have a proper PDF, surely? Think about it -- you know it makes sense.

Cheers,
Norm.

[XorA]

Gents, can we please stop posting links to dodgy web sites offering free copies of PDF books. Thanks.

Unless the link is to Project Gutenberg, where lots of out of copyright and public domain books are legally available, or to archive.org which has books to lend, like a library, then the chances are, the web site is dodgy.

Take a look at the book dates, are they recent? If so, then the site is most likely not legal. Remember book are copyright for 70 years. Unless the publishers have reverted copyright to the author(s) and the author(s) have given written permission, then no web sites should, be offering them for download. The fact that these dodgy sites offer scanned copies should be a clue -- a legal site would surely have a proper PDF, surely? Think about it -- you know it makes sense.

Cheers,
Norm.

Please take note of what Norman says here. Copyright holders do use bots to find easy targets for takedown notices so you make the forum a target for them. And ISPs tend to act first and are hard to reverse. We don’t want to lose the forum.

XorA (wearing mod hat)