TRON: The Unknown Open-Source?

jordandeamattson writes "Over on CNN there is a very interesting article about Tron, an open-source real-time operating system from Japan first developed and distributed in the early 1980s. The claim is that it is more widely distributed than Windows (in some 3 billion devices world-wide), that the developer (Ken Sakamura, a University professor) would be worth mucho if he had just charged for it, and that Microsoft/U.S. goverment used trade rules (Super 301) to block it adoption by schools in Japan. Check it out for an interesting read and a 'what might have been ...'" (Here's a previous mention of Tron from March about MontaVista's work to combine it with Linux.)

Comments

Home page

[makapuf]

Sure, there's google, but there seems to be the TRON OS home page, in english.

Besides, what devices run than OS ? anyone know ?

Re:Home page

[NuMessiah]

OK, but there is more interesting info at:

TRON Project Information

and

TRON Web

also in english :)

bb4now,
PMC

Re:Home page

[torpor]

Pretty much any Japanese electronic musical instrument maker has used TRON. Yamaha keyboards run it, or derivatives of it, I've been told. That will change now though, with Yamaha's recent announcement that they'll be using Linux.

I've followed TRON since I was a kid hacker in the early 80's, and have watched its use in the industry with eager anticipation of the day it becomes more widely known about in the tech sector.

When Linux came into existence (I've been a Linux user since *day one* of its existence), I decided I need not stay current with TRON, which is a shame because I think a lot of the goals of TRON (E-TRON, actually, its supposed to be called) are achievable right now with Linux in the embedded world.

If ever there was proof needed of just how destructive Microsoft has been for the computer industry, it is the fact that hardly anyone in the Western Tech sector (sillicon valley) knows about TRON and what this project was supposed to achieve... and, actually, still is capable of achieving... The project is based around shared source, completely open amongst competing hardware manufacturers.

Embedded kernels running in every electronic device known to man, capable of talking to each other discretely and without human interaction, to create a sort of 'Boewulf cluster' of embedded systems capable of sharing loads and processing power.

TRON was a kick ass project. And everything we've wanted to do with TRON, we can now do with Linux.

Re:Home page

[doctor_no]

TRON today basically has a monopoly on most embedded devices in the world; if you you've used a cell phone, digital camera, driven a car, opened a fridge, played a movie on your VCD/DVD player, turned on your TV, you've likely used TRON in one form or another.

In fact the TRON engine standards group(T-Engine) has more than 100 members worldwide including Fujitsu, Fuji Electric, Hitachi, Kyocera, Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, MIPS, NEC, NTT, NTT DATA, NTT DoCoMo, RSA Security, Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology, Sony, Sharp, Toshiba, Yamaha, Yazaki, and Yokogawa Digital Computer Corp, Toyota, Honda, etc.

Until Linux becomes a fully real-time OS it's unlikely that it'll replace TRON out of the embedded market.

TRON need not be embedded

[kahei]

There are various areas in the TRON project. BTRON would be the desktop-OS oriented part, and that's where the Chokanji OS comes from, still the best environment for DTP in Japanese.

I can remember when TRON was going to save us all from Unicode with its TRON Multilingual Environment. It didn't work out but it did result in quite a nice platform for Mojikyo.

Screenshots for Desktop TRON be here

[RevAaron]

http://tronweb.super-nova.co.jp/btronproducts.html

enjoy...

Re:First Post

[schon]

Tron was a simple program, written only to destroy the MCP

No, actually, Tron was written to shut down programs that perform illegal operations. When he wrote TRON, Allan Bradley didn't even know that MCP was performing illegal operations.