What's contained in this package?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ulm's Oberon System consists of two parts:

- the compiler for Sun3 workstations and some related tools
  (makefile generator + debugger)
- Ulm's Oberon Library

Note that Ulm's Oberon System gives you a conventional working
environment. Instead of putting a new operating system upon another
it may be used like other compilers and libraries under UNIX.

The compiler supports Oberon but not Oberon-2. There exist some
differences in the language as accepted by newer Zuerich compilers
and this one. A summary about the differences can be found in the
file LANGDIFF.

The most interesting part of this package is probably the library
which covers following areas:

- abstractions & techniques which enhance OO-programming, e.g. disciplines
- events & exception handling
- input & output
- concurrency & synchronisation
- persistency
- network programming & distributed systems

All these areas are offered on the base of system-independent abstractions.
The library is accompanied by a couple of UNIX-specific implementations of
these abstractions which are written in 100% Oberon. Thus, there is not
even a single line of C code in the library.

The runtime part of the library (also written in Oberon) contains
a copying garbage collector which is capable of returning memory
back to UNIX.

All parts of the system are documented by manual pages in the usual
UNIX style. Some areas of the library are covered by tutorials.

Some legal notices
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

All sources of this distribution (with the exception of a minor
part of the debugger) have been developed at the University
of Ulm in Germany which holds a copyright on it. They may all be
freely distributed under the terms of the GPL (see file COPYING)
and in case of the library (subdirectories src/lib and src/NeWS)
under the terms of the LGPL (see file COPYING.LIB).

The Oberon System depends heavily on two GNU-tools, namely gas-1.36 and
make-3.70. For easiness, they are shipped with this distribution in
binary form. Take them even if you have newer releases of them because
the Oberon System may not work with other versions.  Because they are
shipped without sources, I've to tell you how you can access them. Your
first try should be anonymous FTP to titania.mathematik.uni-ulm.de
(134.60.66.21) on the Internet -- you'll find the complete packages in
the directory pub/soft/gnu.  Please contact me at the addresses below
if you don't have access to Internet. Then we could make an arrangement
to give the sources of gas and make to you in another form.

Mailing-List
~~~~~~~~~~~~
There exist a mailing list for announcements and discussions about
this Oberon System. If you or one of your users want to participate,
you should send a short notice to my email-address below.

Hotline
~~~~~~~~

Send problems, bugs and suggestions to

	Andreas Borchert
	Universitaet Ulm
	Sektion Angewandte Informationsverarbeitung
	Oberer Eselsberg
	D-89069 Ulm, Germany

	Phone: (+49) 731 502-3572
	Email: borchert@mathematik.uni-ulm.de
