Getting Started with Trianus for the HP700s

After a fair amount of work with Stephan Gehring and Stefan Ludwig from ETH, I have finally gotten together a solid version of Trianus for the HP's. The current version installed in /cad/trianus/hp700 is stable and appears to be as functional as the PC version.

Contents:

  1. Setting Up Your Environment
  2. Starting Oberon on the HP700s
  3. Learning About Oberon

Setting Up Your Environment

To set up your environment for Trianus, add the following to your .cshrc or some sourceable script file:

#############
# Trianus
#############
setenv TRIANUS /cad/trianus/hp700
alias settrianus 'setenv OBERON ".:$TRIANUS/Kernel:$TRIANUS/System:$TRIANUS/Fonts:$TRIANUS/AddOns:$TRIANUS/Text:$TRIANUS/TrianusSource";xset -fp /cad/trianus/hp700/XFonts/;xset +fp /cad/trianus/hp700/XFonts/'
set path =($path $TRIANUS)
The above set-up is different from the set-up used for earlier versions of Trianus and HP-Oberon so older versions of this environment set-up should be updated. Note also that the above set-up doesn't allow you to use the X Windows fonts properly if your X server cannot see /cad, e.g., the Linux machines. To remedy this problem, do one of the following:
  1. Use this alternate set-up which uses XFonts installed in /fpga2/users/grahamp/XFonts: 
    #############
# Trianus
#############
setenv TRIANUS /cad/trianus/hp700
alias settrianus 'setenv OBERON ".:$TRIANUS/Kernel:$TRIANUS/System:$TRIANUS/Fonts:$TRIANUS/AddOns:$TRIANUS/Text:$TRIANUS/TrianusSource";xset -fp /fpga2/users/grahamp/XFonts/;xset +fp /fpga2/users/grahamp/XFonts/'
set path =($path $TRIANUS)
  2. Don't use the X fonts by using the following set-up: 
    #############
# Trianus
#############
setenv TRIANUS /cad/trianus/hp700
alias settrianus 'setenv OBERON ".:$TRIANUS/Kernel:$TRIANUS/System:$TRIANUS/Fonts:$TRIANUS/AddOns:$TRIANUS/Text:$TRIANUS/TrianusSource"'
set path =($path $TRIANUS)
  3. Get the sysop's to mount /cad for you and use the first set-up.
Using X fonts is an advantage since it will speed up Oberon's operation. I would recommend using X fonts.

Starting Oberon on the HP700s

Once you have a Trianus set-up in a sourceable script file or your .cshrc, remember to execute the alias settrianus (or whatever you need to do to set the OBERON environment variable properly).

Once $OBERON is properly set, I recommend creating a Trianus work directory and changing to that directory. With this done, I recommend you execute one of the following commands to start up Oberon:

oberon -h 10 &
This provides Oberon with a larger, 10 MB heap instead of the default 4 MB heap.

oberon -c -h 10 &
In addition to a 10 MB heap size, this tells Oberon to install its own color map. This is needed especially with color "hog" applications such as XV and Netscape.

Larger heaps are not required for compiling, placing, and routing the example Lola files provided with Trianus but may be required for much larger designs.

Learning About Oberon

Lastly, to get started with Oberon, I recommend you start off by reading Welcome.Text--this is done by middle clicking on the XE.Open command preceding Welcome.Text in the System.Tool window. Then, I recommend that you read Oberon.Guide.Text; this is referenced in Welcome.Text and can be opened through that document or using the Docu pop-up menu, as explained below. Additionally, I recommended reading HP.Oberon.Guide.Text to understand how basic things are done in HP-Oberon. All of these documents are short and will save you a lot of grief if read initially, assuming you are not already familiar with Oberon.

Also, you will notice 6 gray buttons in the System.Tool window when Oberon starts up. If you middle click on these buttons, pop-up menus will appear. I will briefly explain the kinds of commands made accessible through these buttons.

Edit
This button provides some of the basic commands for editing and printing documents in HP-Oberon. The editor I recommend for most work in Oberon is XE since it allows you to compile Oberon, Lola, and other work within the editor. Note also that printing jobs are sent to ps424 in the lab.

System
This pop-up menu contains the most frequently used System commands such as commands for deleting files, changing the working directory, displaying a directory listing, quitting Oberon, etc.

Tool
With the items of this pop-up menu, most of the useful Tool documents (documents which provide listings of useful commands for different Oberon "programs") can be opened. One tool which may be particularly useful is the Miscellaneous.Tool--this contains the commands for copying and pasting to and from the X Windows clipboard.

Docu
With this button, all of the on-line documentation provided with Trianus and HP-Oberon can be opened and read. I have added a few additional documents from Windows Oberon for additional reference.

Browser and Dialog
These currently are not useful, but may be in the near future.
If you have any questions, please bounce them my way. If you run into anything that appears to be a bug, also let me know since Stefan and Stephan would be interested in the things we find.

Have fun making lots of XC6200/Lola/Schema designs!

Go to the CCL Tutorials Page Go to the CCL Home Page

Last modified: Wed Dec 4 15:04:04 MST 1996

Please send comments to: grahamp@fpga.ee.byu.edu