🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <5117@stiatl.UUCP> meo@stiatl.UUCP (Miles O'Neal) writes:
>In article <382@h.cs.wvu.wvnet.edu> jdm@a.cs.wvu.wvnet.edu (James D Mooney) writes:
>| 1. It's a Japanese project, not relevant outside Japan.
>Bingo. There's a lot of shortsightedness, NIH syndrome, and similar stuff
>around.
>| 2. It's not needed; there are enough standards.
>Possibly.
>| 3.  Only single-company de facto standards (like IBM) are practical.
>I doubt this is a biggie.
>| 4.  It's interesting, but will have no effect on me.
>Bingo again. Japanese project, Japanese standard.
>
>Part of it is, I believe, frustration and fear of the Japanese, and
>lack of any clear idea how to deal with them. SO, in typical US fashion,
>we ignore it and hope it goes away.
>
>But also, there has not been very much press coverage, or professional
>group attention turned towards it. I suspect most of us don't really
>even know what all it covers. I certainly don't. Throw in that with the
>fact that we are standardizing on UNIX (the ultimate real-time system
>(haha)) and a handful of microprocessors, and most people see no need,
>no interest, no threat.
>
>SO, educate us. What are the high points, the low points, and such,
>from your vantage point?

Go find the last two years IEEE COMPCON proceedings.  Each has had
an entire session on TRON.  There are also the occasional articles
in IEEE Computer.  More details than can be posted.

You should be aware that the Usenet is being read in Japan.
It's readership is impressive and growing.  I had this made clear to
me in recent meetings.  Theirs is a culture which takes a much
different view to electronic mail and news than we do.  You will not
see many postings because to express one's opinion means to carry
great weight (unlike here).  So if you (general readership) care to insult
them, they will read it.  You will just be ignored as a crank.

I think some grave mistakes (or absolutely brilliant, but off the wall
decisions) in choice were made.  I follow the TRs and TNs
which come from places like ICOT, various companies, etc. So you see
this note "tips my hand."  Like the early selection of IBM compatable
supercomputers is one decision [long before the 3090 mainframe line].
This goes for so-called new-generation machines (a physicist here
believes the NeXT is the first real 5th gen. machine).  Prolog engines,
inference machines, etc.  Different choices.  It permeates decisions
in areas like software or architectures.  It is interesting to compare
my non-disclosure 1990-notes of 1984 to the latest architectures from
the one particular conglomerate.  Plans have clearly changed.  Workstations
and Unix are coming in.  Watch for hypercubes or Connection Machine-like
architectures.  If one appears, our "lead" will diminish even more.

Another gross generalization from

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov
  resident cynic at the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
  "You trust the `reply' command with all those different mailers out there?"
  "If my mail does not reach you, please accept my apology."
  {ncar,decwrl,hplabs,uunet}!ames!eugene
  				Live free or die.

In article <5117@stiatl.UUCP> meo@stiatl.UUCP (Miles O'Neal) writes:
>
>SO, educate us. What are the high points, the low points, and such,
>from your vantage point?
>

The other night CNN had a 5+ minute story on TRON. They reported that the
TRONgroup (whatever it is officially called) included several European
vendors, and they went into some depth on a project to build a "smart
house" with about 10,000 microprocessors (mostly 8-bit it seemed). In
addition to the smart house, there was a smart office complex
underway. 

The "big wins" from having fully enlightened and mutually comunicating
applicances was that turning up the stereo would close the windows,
turn up the air conditioning, get turned down by the phone, etc. In
addition, turning on a light would result in more air conditioning.
The guiding principal was supposed to make life better and easier;
every design decision is supposed to be made from the user perspective ...

While CNN is most certainly not the best sort of medium for a
technical exposition, it seemed that the goals (or examples thereof)
could possibly justify the expensive of the massive wiring harness
(which they showed), the decreased reliabilty (I cannot see how
connecting my toaster and microwave to my reading light can _increase_
reliability of the system) and general increase in complexity.

In addition, the stated plan was to start with a sample house and
office bldg; work up to a city (big brother watches each toliet flush,
and reacts accordingly) then to a province (chiba ?) then to all
Japan, then to all the world ....

While this is probably a good warm up for building a large
multi-generation spaceship, the vision of a vast number of Z80's
communicating with some Fifth Generation Supercomputer with the big
payoff being that my heating and airconditioning might be 5% more
efficient (somehow having a few more thermostats didn't seem to occur
to them) does not seem all that interesting.

The TRON keyboard (very post dvorak), the communication protocols, and
many of the other subprojects are probably quite interesting. But the
fundamental mindset (presumning the CNN staff was doing due dilligence
... which is admittedly uncertain) seems wrong ... having appliances
talk to each other, across the world does not automatically make sense.

I am hoping that one of you NetLanders can enlighten me ... why are
the TRONfolks working so hard ... what are the problems they are
trying to solve. Until these are clearly articulated, arguments about
how many wires are needed to build a robust applicance communications
channel seem moot.



Keith H. Bierman      |*My thoughts are my own. Only my work belongs to Sun*
It's Not My Fault     |	Marketing Technical Specialist    ! kbierman@sun.com
I Voted for Bill &    |   Languages and Performance Tools. 
Opus  (* strange as it may seem, I do more engineering now     *)

In article <110573@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> khb@sun.UUCP (chiba) writes:
>In article <5117@stiatl.UUCP> meo@stiatl.UUCP (Miles O'Neal) writes:
>>
>>SO, educate us. What are the high points, the low points, and such,
>>from your vantage point?
>>
>
>The other night CNN had a 5+ minute story on TRON. They reported that the

Any CNN coverage on Japan is suspect.  Not only does it suffer from the
usual American problem of illiterates (in Japanese) reporting on a
culture they know little about, there is the special problem that some
of CNN coverage on Japan is funded by Sasagawa Ryoichi, an extreme right
winger who controls betting on boat racing in Japan.

>office bldg; work up to a city (big brother watches each toliet flush,
>and reacts accordingly) then to a province (chiba ?) then to all
>Japan, then to all the world ....

This should be easy to accomplish in Japan. Microprocessor pot seats
have been big in Japan for a number of years (I kid you not). You can
easily spend $2500 on a pot. These include not just a heated seat (bun
warmer) but various scented air and water sprays. Some have sensors to
tell you your body temparature, pulse and blood pressure. (How
representative measures are when you're taking a shit is open to
question.)  I got my (Japanese) wife to test fly one set up in the
women's head of the Nada-Kobe Coop near our home.  She said there were
so many controls and options that she finished her business before she
could figure out how to programme the pot.  Once she had, she decided
she wasn't going to let a microprocessor decide what got sprayed on
her privates!

In article <5117@stiatl.UUCP> meo@stiatl.UUCP (Miles O'Neal) writes:
>But also, there has not been very much press coverage, or professional
>group attention turned towards it. I suspect most of us don't really
>even know what all it covers. I certainly don't. Throw in that with the
>fact that we are standardizing on UNIX (the ultimate real-time system
>(haha)) and a handful of microprocessors, and most people see no need,
>no interest, no threat.
>
>SO, educate us. What are the high points, the low points, and such,
>from your vantage point?

We are just finishing a Unix port to the H32/200 one of the chips in the
TRON family.  What I can tell you is that it is the ULTIMATE CISC machine.

Here is a single assembly source instruction:

     mov @(@(@(@(100000,r1),300000,r2),400000,r3),500000,r4),\
	 @(@(@(@(100000,r1),300000,r2),400000,r3),500000,r4)

And here is the resulting object instruction.

	 D20B 4412 0001 86A0
         4812 0004 93E0 4C12 
         0006 1A80 9012 0007 
         A120 8A0B 4412 0001 
         86A0 4812 0004 93E0 
         4C12 0006 1A80 9012 
         0007 A120           

This single instruction perfoms 8 memory accesses for address computation and
two more accesses to move data.  And it is possible to write an instruction
even longer than this one.  Needless to say, the compiler that I wrote does
not make use of all the possible address modes.

    Marv Rubinstein

Could it be that Japan hopes to develop adequate software and hardware
for a domestic market they have targetted?  Now that they have a
standard that the US cares nothing about, those machines (no matter how
inferior or superior) are national standards for a selected market.
They have a hammerlock on the their market and they still support
popular non-Japanese systems for foreign sales and have a clever
impediment to foreign sales.  In addition, if TRON meets design goals,
then they will storm foreign markets.

*** comp.realtime has been removed from this follow-up because our news
system doesn't know that newsgroup.  That is unfortunate; comp.realtime
would have been more appropriate than the remaining cross-posted groups.

In article <2140@umbc3.UMBC.EDU> chimiakb@mmlai.uu.net. (Dr. William Chimiak) writes:

>Could it be that Japan hopes to develop adequate software and hardware
>for a domestic market they have targetted?

You mean like the U.S.A. has done?  Blocking better OS's from some
American vendors?

>Now that they have a standard that the US cares nothing about,

That is the U.S.A.'s problem.  Japan cares something about American
operating systems, including inferior ones.

>those machines (no matter how
>inferior or superior) are national standards for a selected market.

Just like the U.S.A. did.

>They have a hammerlock on the their market

TRON will be public domain, unlike any U.S. operating system that I am
aware of.  Any serious U.S. company that is not preparing their TRON
OS now is rather foolish.

>and they still support popular non-Japanese systems for foreign sales

Yes, and the U.S.A. should learn to support popular non-American systems.

>and have a clever
>impediment to foreign sales.  In addition, if TRON meets design goals,
>then they will storm foreign markets.

Again, any serious U.S. company that is not preparing their TRON OS now,
even for their home market, is rather foolish.

***  There are reasons to be critical of TRON (several of its aspects
anyway), but Dr. Chimiak's posting did not cite any valid ones.

--
Norman Diamond, Sony Computer Science Lab (diamond%csl.sony.jp@relay.cs.net)
 The above opinions are claimed by your machine's init process (pid 1), after
 being disowned and orphaned.  However, if you see this at Waterloo, Stanford,
 or Anterior, then their administrators must have approved of these opinions.