============================ Overview of the TRON Project ============================ TRON (The Real-time Operating System Nucleus) is a project aimed at creating an ideal computer architecture. The project was started by Dr. Ken Sakamura of the University of Tokyo in 1984. Private industry is cooperating with academia to bring a whole new computer order into reality. Why is the TRON Project attempting to design computer infrastructures anew? A key premise of the project is that a "computerized society" is emerging, in which all the tools, appliances, equipment and other objects making up our living environments will be embedded with microcomputers. What's more, these objects will be interconnected by computer networks, enabling them to support human activities on many fronts, through collaborative action. The term intelligent objects is applied to these computer-embedded things. When they become networked for collaborative action the resulting system is called a highly functionally distributed system (HFDS). Realizing such systems is the most important goal of the TRON Project. Work is now going ahead on six fundamental subprojects and a number of application projects. The fundamental subprojects study each component of the computer systems that will go into constructing an HFDS. They include the TRON-specification CHIP (VLSI microprocessor architecture), ITRON (real-time OS specifications for embedded systems), BTRON (an architecture centering on OS specifications for personal computers and workstations), CTRON (OS interface specifications for communication and information processing), MTRON (an attached operating system architecture for interconnection among the above operating systems), and the TRON Electronic Equipment HMI subproject (standard guidelines for human-machine interface in electronic equipment of various kinds). The application subprojects test out actual applications in an HFDS, find problems in them, break the problems down into more concrete sub-problems, and solve each of them. They simulate the future computerized society on a relatively small scale, and evaluate the architecture being developed in the fundamental subprojects. The application subprojects use the results of the fundamental subprojects to solve the problems, and the fundamental subprojects receive vital feedback from the application subprojects. For the 1990s and on to the twenty-first century ------------------------------------------------ The TRON Project is aimed at an ideal computer architecture assuming the technological levels from the 1990s into the twenty-first century. This ideal is premised on advanced VLSI technology, emphasizes real-time processing and cost-performance, and is aimed at the ultimate realization of the von Neumann architecture. The TRON Project is applying consistent and wholly new design principles to architectures across the entire range of computer applications, encompassing consumer electronics, industrial robots, personal computers, workstations, large-scale computers, and telephone switching systems. Open architecture ----------------- A key policy of the TRON Project is that the results of the project, in the form of published specifications, are made available to the public. Anyone throughout the world is free to develop and market products implementing the specifications. This is considered essential from the standpoint of realizing the HFDS concept. The TRON Association has been established as the core organization for the purpose of preparing the TRON specification documents and administering conformance testing. Membership in the TRON Association is open to anyone in the world who shares in the objectives of the TRON Project and agrees to observe the TRON Association's rules. Loose standardization --------------------- TRON specifications set rules for computer interfaces, but do not presuppose any particular hardware or software. They do not specify the operating systems themselves, but only the OS interfaces. The aims are to achieve program and data compatibility, reduce development costs, and facilitate the training of users and application programmers. The TRON Project adopts loose standardization, which stipulates only the design concepts. The actual systems are built by implementors freely, in line with the standardized design concepts. The loose standardization is a reasonable compromise that allows the adoption of emerging technologies while maintaining compatibility among the various HFDS components. Interfaces are defined hierarchically; they consist of the microprocessor instruction set, operating system nucleus ("kernel"), operating system outer nucleus, and application programs. This hierarchical approach makes it possible to have different companies implement each layer separately. Even if the implementations below a given layer are different, the upper layers can still be used as is. Moreover, because of the consistent architecture throughout, standardization is achieved while allowing numerous companies to participate in free competition. Compatibility with the future ----------------------------- The TRON Project is freeing the computer world from the fetters of compatibility with the past, for the sake of compatibility with the future. Many computer systems of today are extensions of early architectures. They are like houses that have been enlarged many times. The TRON Project, on the other hand, is building a brand new architecture on the basis of the VLSI technology of the future. The TRON microprocessor (CHIP) architecture, for example, supports a 32-bit bus width, but is designed for expansion to 64 bits. TRON specifies a standard data format called TAD (TRON Application Databus) guaranteeing data interchange across applications. The TAD format also offers a way of achieving coexistence with the world of existing operating systems. Operating computers like cars: toward a standard human-machine interface ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Another goal of the TRON Project is to enable anyone to use computers. In the case of automobiles, all makes and models are driven in basically the same way. Similar standardization of human-machine interface is needed especially for personal computers, allowing hardware and applications to be upgraded or changed without the extra burden of re-learning. Fundamental Subprojects ======================= TRON-specification CHIP ----------------------- A series of general-purpose microprocessors are necessary for building intelligent objects. The TRON-specification CHIP is an original VLSI microprocessor architecture designed to support the components of HFDS. The TRON-specification CHIP is designed with future expansion in mind so that the semiconductor technology of the 1990s and the twenty-first century will be well utilized. The first versions are 32 bits, but extension to 64 bits is straightforward. The instruction set includes special instructions that support ITRON and BTRON efficiently. Also, a more compact fomat is available for frequently used instructions, enabling more efficient execution and smaller program size. The TRON-specification CHIP is being implemented by different manufacturers simultaneously, living up to its name as a truly standardized architecture. Products already developed include the Gmicro/100, 200, 300, 400, 500; TX1, TX2; MN10400, and O32 microprocessors. The Gmicro/400 and 500 adopt a superscalar architecture, with the latter achieving the highest performance to date. The TX2 is aimed at low-power applications, offering the best performance per unit power consumption. System bus standards for the TRON-specification CHIP are also being studied. Specifications of two standard buses have already been issued. One is called TOXBUS and is intended for high-speed synchronous transfer among processors, memory, and I/O devices. The other is a general-purpose asynchronous bus called TOBUS. The CHIP validation suite was developed as a set of programs for testing conformity of CHIP implementations to the TRON specifications, and conformance testing was started in 1993. ITRON (Industrial TRON) ----------------------- ITRON is an architecture for real-time operating systems for embedded computers. It is used as a real-time multitasking operating system for intelligent objects. The first ITRON kernel specification was ITRON1, issued in 1987. Thereafter, in 1989 uITRON (micro-ITRON, Ver. 2) was released for 8-bit microcontrollers and the ITRON2 specification was issued for 32-bit processors like the TRON-specification CHIP. A large number of kernels were implemented on these specifications and used in a wide range of application systems. Since many of these implementations were developed for in-house use, the total number is hard to gauge; but around 30 products have been registered with the TRON Association. More recently the uITRON3.0 (micro-ITRON3.0) specification was released in 1993, and is now being implemented on various processors. The uITRON3.0 specification is noteworthy for its connection functions, for application to distributed systems linked in a network. In addition to the kernel specifications, the ITRON/FILE specification was developed providing file management functions that are compatible with the BTRON file system. Current research involves designing ITRON-MP, which is an extension of ITRON for shared-memory multiprocessor systems ("MP" stands for multiprocessor), and IMTRON, which supports dynamically reconfigurable distributed systems. IMTRON is an important step toward HFDS realization. Other efforts under way in this subproject include the provision of a development environment to support the creation of software on ITRON-specification kernels, and the standardization of debugging environments. BTRON (Business TRON) --------------------- BTRON is an architecture for personal computers or workstations, which supports smooth interaction between human beings and machines. Important features of BTRON are its uniform human-machine interface (HMI) and data compatibility using a portable interchange format called TRON Application Databus (TAD). The BTRON HMI features a graphical user interface (GUI) using a keyboard and an electronic pen as input devices. A touch-panel version of the HMI guidelines and a pen-only version are also under development. The TRON HMI Specifications are design guidelines supporting several kinds of physical interaction parts, such as buttons, switches, and handles, for adaptability to various users and applications. Examples of this adaptability are Enableware and multilingual specifications. Enableware is a wide range of HMI functions ensuring accessibility by people with various physical handicaps. The multilingual specifications enable people to operate computerized systems in their own mother tongue. The HMI created according to the guidelines will maintain consistency of design, so that users can move from one system to the other without encountering HMI incompatibilities. TAD is a standard that provides data compatibility among the computers designed according to the TRON architecture. TAD is intended as a universal data exchange format, handling real-time information like voice and video, and various environmental information, as well as conventional text and ordinary graphics. The operating system specifications satisfying these objectives that have been released to date are called BTRON1, BTRON2, and BTRON3 specifications. The BTRON1 specification was designed for machines with limited hardware resources. The BTRON2 specification was designed to take advantage of hardware resources on more powerful computer systems. The BTRON3 specification has features geared to loosely coupled networking, being designed for connection with a uITRON3.0-specification OS. A BTRON1-specification OS running on a notebook computer was released in 1991. The TRON-concept keyboard has been developed for BTRON-specification computers. It is designed for ease of use and causes less fatigue than a conventional keyboard. An electronic digitizing pen is used as a pointing device, which is advantageous in drawing figures or characters. The first product implementing the TRON-concept keyboard was marketed in 1991. The uBTRON bus (micro-BTRON bus) specification defines a new personal LAN. This bus is for connection of peripheral equipment called "electronic stationery" to BTRON-specification computers. It aims to achieve real-time performance and ease of use. Current research projects include a new window system architecture for BTRON, the TRON Application Control-flow Language (TACL), which serves as a graphical batch language for BTRON, and establishment of a multimedia TAD specification. CTRON (Central/Communication TRON) ---------------------------------- CTRON is a set of operating system interfaces for common application to switching, communication processing, and information processing nodes in telecommunication networks. Studies on CTRON interface specifications began in the 1980s, at the dawn of the information society, aimed at making CTRON the core of communication network design. Since then an extensive set of interface specifications have been designed and published, a two-year portability experiment was conducted to confirm software portability on the interfaces, and real-time performance evaluations have been carried out. The initial edition of the CTRON interface specifications was released in 1988. The specifications have since been refined in various ways, with a slimmed-down specification published in 1993 as the New Original CTRON Specification Series. An OS validation service for CTRON was begun in 1989, since which time more than 20 products have been certified as compliant with the specifications. A CTRON software portability evaluation was carried out from 1990 to 1992, to evaluate quantitatively the degree of software portability of CTRON-specification products. This experiment verified the high degree of portability achieved in CTRON. At the same time it served to clarify a number of portability-related issues, and these findings have been reflected in subsequent revisions to the specifications. Today, CTRON is well on the way to establishing itself as a basic software platform for the advanced communication networks of the 1990s. Current studies are aimed at making CTRON the core of communication networks in the multimedia age, as we approach the 21st century. MTRON (Macro TRON) ------------------ A key issue for HFDS realization is the MTRON subproject. MTRON is a methodology for building an "operating system" for the large computer networks included in an HFDS. Research on MTRON has become more active recently, because the components of MTRON have become available as the result of other fundamental subprojects. The MTRON subproject is in the basic research stage. The most important research topic is programmable interfaces using the TRON Universal Language System (TULS). IMTRON, which is an extension of ITRON, is also an important step on the way to MTRON realization. TRON Electronic Equipment HMI ----------------------------- An HFDS contains many intelligent objects, which work cooperatively and support all aspects of human living. The human-machine interface (HMI) required in the TRON Project must be a consistent HMI scheme covering all aspects of the HFDS. The TRON Electronic Equipment HMI subproject is setting HMI guidelines for all kinds of intelligent objects including personal computers, electronic equipment, and automobiles. The results of the project to date have been released as the TRON Human-Machine Interface Specifications. An HMI design competition based on these specifications was held in 1992 and again in 1993, as a way of evaluating the effectiveness of the guidelines. Application Subprojects ======================= TRON-concept Intelligent House ------------------------------ The TRON-concept Intelligent House is an experimental house used for research into the future of home automation. The pilot house was completed in December 1989 in Tokyo's Nishi-Azabu district, and was used for experiments running through 1992. The purpose of the pilot house was to carry out intensive experiments simulating living in the automated dwellings of the near future. The simulations were aimed at finding out the nature of future styles of living and exploring their possibilities. Computers and sensors in the Intelligent House made overall judgments on outdoor and indoor conditions, then operated as an integrated system to provide maximum comfort. For example, temperature and humidity were controlled not only by the air conditioning system, but also by automatic opening and closing of the house to outdoor air as weather conditions dictated. Moreover, a uniform operating method was adopted for all the systems throughout the house, for ease of operation by young and old alike. TRON-concept Intelligent Building --------------------------------- The purpose of the TRON-concept Intelligent Building is to use the results of TRON Project fundamental studies, applying them in the design of computerized building systems and realizing office spaces that are better suited to the people working in them. The TRON-concept Intelligent Buildings incorporate the TRON concept of HFDS. Computers, sensors and actuators will be built into the lights, air conditioners, windows and other building parts. These various subsystems will be capable of communicating with each other so that they can coordinate their actions, improving overall efficiency and creating better environments for those in the building. A network of BTRON-specification personal computers will enhance communication in the building. At the same time, automated storage and conveyance systems using robots will streamline the flow of documents and other materials throughout the building. A pilot TRON-concept Intelligent Building is in the final design stage, and its construction is due to begin soon. TRON Computer City ------------------ The TRON Computer City will incorporate TRON Project concepts on a large scale, raising human living comfort and also improving intellectual productivity. All aspects of the city, including office buildings, dwellings, and roads, are to be computerized, with the individual systems networked together. The city is planned for completion at the beginning of the twenty-first century. In this city of the future, for example, intelligent automobiles will be able to travel to their destinations on "automatic pilot." Sensors in roads will warn nearby cars if someone should suddenly run out onto the roadway. Computer networks linking office buildings will enable the same work to be per formed in any of the buildings. Working at home will also become more feasibl e thanks to the advanced communication and transport links. TRON-Based Autotraffic Information System ----------------------------------------- The TRON-Based Autotraffic Information System subproject studied an automobile traffic network system for the future computer society. In the system envisioned, automobiles will be linked with each other and also with roads and with cities, in networks of free-flowing information that will bring new safety and ease to automobile travel.