jdm@wvucsa.UUCP (03/04/88)
A recent article included a request for information on the
Japanese TRON project. I hope the following will be helpful.
The TRON project was begun in 1984 by Dr. Ken Sakamura at
the University of Tokyo. Its ultimate objective is to support
what is envisioned as "Highly Functionally Distributed Systems"
or HFDS, that is, networks that span the globe, connecting
large computers, personal workstations, and a multitude of
"intelligent objects" such as appliances, environmental control
systems, cameras, automobiles, etc., etc., in which computers
are embedded.
TRON stands for The Realtime Operating system Nucleus. The total
project includes a specification for a TRON CPU chip and several
different types of operating systems. The OS subprojects include
ITRON (Industrial TRON), specialized for control of
intelligent objects;
BTRON (Business TRON), specialized for control of
workstations;
CTRON (Communication, Central and Common-Use TRON),
specialized for managing processing on larger computers
and communication between computers;
MTRON (Macro TRON), intended to provide overall intelligent
control to the HFDS.
MTRON is still in an early stage of development; ITRON, BTRON,
CTRON and the TRON CPU are fairly well developed. Each project
is defined by a set of specifications which focus on the interface
and functionality and deliberate leave room for design variations.
It is intended that the specifications be publicly available and
it is hoped that many manufacturers will develop chips and
operating systems which meet the specifications. Several Japanese
companies have already developed versions of the TRON CPU and of
ITRON and BTRON.
The CTRON specifications are still being completed. They are based
partially on the IEEE 855 (MOSI) standard for operating system
interfaces. As chair of the MOSI committee I have been working
with some of the CTRON developers.
The initial TRON papers and documents were all in Japanese. However,
IEEE MICRO last year devoted an entire issue to TRON (Vol. 7, No. 2,
April 1987. The TRON Association was formed in Japan in 1986 and
holds annual conferences in November. Proceedings of the most
recent conference, in English, are available:
Sakamura, Ken (ed.)
TRON Project 1987: Open-Architecture Computer Systems
(Proceedings of the Third TRON Project Symposium)
Springer-Verlag, Tokyo or New York (etc.).
ISBN 0-387-70027-7
Official documents and further information can be obtained from
the TRON association:
TRON Association
c/o Japan Electronic Industry Development Association
3-5-8 Shiba-Koen, Minato-Ku, Tokyo 105 JAPAN
The documents are bulky and expensive (hundreds of dollars).
They are priced for companies with a serious interest in
participating, not for individuals. I recommend the MICRO
articles for an introduction, and the Symposium proceedings
for more detailed information.
The TRON Association included 90 company members as of November.
Most are Japanese companies, but names like IBM, Motorola and
Texas Instruments also appear. TRON activity outside of Japan
seems likely to increase rapidly.
--
Jim Mooney Dept. of Stat. & Computer Science
(304) 293-3607 West Virginia University
Morgantown, WV 26506
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