ST-Oberon
ST-Oberon V4 is a port of the ETH Oberon
V4 operating system for Atari-ST & TT computers. The system is supplied with an
Oberon(-1) compiler, garbage collector, a linker and comes with complete source code.
Of course, ST-Oberon is freeware.
Unfortunately we have no interest to support ST-Oberon any further. If there's anyone who wants
to take over the support of ST-Oberon, just contact us.
Some further developments of ST-Oberon have been done by Thomas Knecht. Visit his Site
Oberon Tossing Atari.
ST-Oberon has been tested on TOS 1.0, 1.4 and 2.06 on a 1040STF, a MEGA ST2, a Stacy, on a TT
and on Steem, the Windows ST-Emulator.
Hardware Requirements:
- Atari ST or TT computer with at least 2 MB RAM (for serious use,
altough ST-Oberon will also run with only 1 MB)
- 4 MB of harddisk space, preferably on a harddisk connected to the
ACSI port.
Download & Installation:
Download the archive ST-Oberon.zip and unpack it.
It contains three files (each file will fit on a 720 Kb Floppy-Disk):
- SYSTEM.LZH the main LZH archive containing
- KERNEL.PRG the Oberon System loader.
- $$OBDISK.IMG the data file containing the virtual Oberon harddisk partiton.
- PCMOUSE.PRG a tool to connect a Microsoft or Mouse Systems compatible serial mouse to your Atari.
- PCMOUSE.S the assembler source code of the above tool.
- README.TXT part of this text.
- PR3FONTS.ARC an Oberon compressed archive containg the *.Pr3.Fnt fonts (only needed by the postscript printer).
- SOURCE.ARC an Oberon compressed archive containing all sources of the system.
To start Oberon, unpack SYSTEM.LZH and execute KERNEL.PRG.
Here is a screenshot of ST-Oberon running on Steem
at a screen resolution of 640x400:
Installation on a ACSI Partition:
KERNEL.PRG has to be launched from a root directory and loads the system either
out of container drive (image) file $$OBDISK.IMG if available or from the physically
first partition detected that identifies as OBB or OBR.
ST-Oberon comes with its own ACSI driver (Module Disk) to access Oberon partitions with the Oberon File System.
The driver gives only access to the first three partitions of a hard disk or if there are
only four partitions to one of those four.
Class 0 SCSI commands (six bytes message header length) are supported only, thus 2^21 physical
sectors are addressable, allowing Oberon partitions to be installed within the first
Gigabyte of a hard disk only. Only one partition at a time is accessible.
Thomas Knecht has done a modification of Module Disk to handle XGM rootsectors.
XGM rootsectors manage usage of more than four partitions.
Release.Text of Simon Egli's Oberon Distribution describes how to install
Oberon onto a hard disk partition from a system running on container drive (image)
file $$OBDISK.IMG by command Harddisk.Install.
Alternatively installation can be done by editing sectors in a disk monitor and by
linking a basic "bootstrapping" system to a TOS-executable program and starting Oberon therefrom,
i.e. with an Oberon scratch partition. Following an e-mail of Simon Egli, recommended steps are:
Caution. Be careful. Might damage hard disk data.
Be aware that installation might not succeed on some devices and that an installed Oberon file system might not work reliably on some devices.
Please send any comments and corrections concerning these lines, I don't do this installation very often.
Within Oberon:
Link a basic system together by command
PRGLinker.Link 32 ParcElems FoldElems StampElems Compress Compiler System ~
Copy to TOS Partition:
System.CopyFiles SYSTEM.PRG => C:\SYSTEM.PRG
Syntax10.Scn.Fnt => C:\SYNTAX10.FNT
Syntax8.Scn.Fnt => C:\SYNTAX8.FNT ~
Create an archive containing all *.Menu.Text files and copy it to C:
(this is for convenience only, it can also be done by copying and renaming).
Within TOS:
Disk Monitor:
Change identifier of partition appointed to become Oberon partition to OBB (from GEM
or BGM or whatever) on hard disk connected over the ACSI bus. Go to third physical sector of that
partition. There write the value of magic number Const FileDir.DirMark followed by six (6)
zero bytes to first ten (10) bytes of sector:
9B 1E A3 8D 00 00 00 00 00 00 .
Invoke C:\SYSTEM.PRG to start Oberon.
Within Oberon:
Copy ("import") SOURCE.ARC and the *.Menu.Text Archive to Oberon partition and uncompress.
Call command Compiler.Compile Doc MathL PopupElems Edit Browser ~
Compile other sources as needed, expand folds by command FoldElems.Expand * first,
as long as XE, who's command XE.Comp is able to compile folded code, is uncompiled.
have fun!
please send bug reports or feedback to .
Other important Oberon links:
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