History of the TRON Project

10 years old, having officially begun in June 1984. The project began as the result of recommendations made in a report by a Japan Electronic Industrial Development Association technical committee that investigated microprocessor applications in the 1990s and beyond. This committee, which was chaired by Dr. Ken Sakamura of the University of Tokyo, came to the following important conclusions:

• backward compatibility slowed down technical innovation in microprocessor design
• computer systems were designed to handle English, which uses a one-byte character system, and hence could not efficiently process Japanese, which uses a two-byte character system
• microprocessors and their operating systems were not designed for real-time processing
• there was no standardization among the various computer systems in use and many technical details of the proprietary systems that had become de facto standards were not made public

Hence the TRON Project was begun to address these problems and put into place a new, open computer architecture that could be used to answer the needs of computer applications required in the 1990s and beyond into the 21st century.

Below is a brief chronology of the TRON Project from 1984 to 1997.

1984

TRON Project officially launched

1985

NEC announces first ITRON implementation based on ITRON/86 specification

1986

TRON Kyogikai [unincorporated TRON Association] established

Hitachi announces ITRON implementation based on ITRON/68K specification

First TRON Project Symposium held

1987

Fujitsu anounces ITRON implementation based on ITRON/MMU specification

Mitsubishi Electric announces ITRON implementation based on ITRON/32 specification

Hitachi announces Gmicro/200 32-bit microprocessor based on the TRON VLSI CPU specification

1988

TRON Association [incorporated TRON Association] officially established

Toshiba announces TX1 32-bit microprocessor based on the TRON VLSI CPU specification

TRON Electronic Prosthetics Symposium '88 (TEPS '88) held to demonstrate EnableWare technology to the disabled

1989

Matsushita unveils a personal computer for educational use based on the BTRON specification

TRON Intelligent Building concept unveiled

Oki Electric announces the RG68KS-BOS basic operating system based on the CTRON specification

Mitsubishi Electric announces Gmicro/100 32-bit microprocessor based on the TRON VLSI CPU specification

Fujitsu announces Gmicro/300 32-bit microprocessor based on the TRON VLSI CPU specification

Construction completed on the TRON-concept Intelligent House

1990

TRON Electronic Prosthetics Symposium '90 (TEPS '90) held

Personal Media launches premier issue of a new magazine called TRONWARE

Oki Electric announces OKITRON-C operating system based on the CTRON specification

Toshiba announces the TR90 kernel based on the ITRON specification

Oki Electric announces O32 32-bit microprocessor based on the TRON VLSI CPU specification

Matsushita begins marketing BTRON-based PanaCAL ET educational computer

TRONSHOW '90 held to exhibit TRON-based products to the public

1991

Personal Media begins marketing the TK-1 TRON-specification ergonomic keyboard

Personal Media begins marketing 1B/note, a laptop computer with a BTRON-specification OS

Two bus architectures TOXBUS and TOBUS are unveiled

TRONSHOW '91 held to exhibit TRON-based products to the public

1992

Software portability experiment across CTRON-based systems completed

Human-machine interface (HMI) design competition held

Yamaha announces a bus controller LSI for LANs based on BTRON-specification systems

TRONSHOW '92 held to exhibit TRON-based products to the public

TRON Electronic Prosthetics Symposium '92 (TEPS '92) held

1993

Tandem Computers Japan announces Integrity C300 transaction processor based on CTRON-specification OS

Toshiba announces TX2 32-bit microprocessor based on the TRON VLSI CPU specification

Hitachi announces Gmicro/500 32-bit microprocessor based on the TRON VLSI CPU specification

Oki Electric announces the OKITRON-L/M series digital exchanges

TRONSHOW '93 held to exhibit TRON-based products to the public

TRON Electronic Prosthetics Symposium '93 (TEPS '93) held

1994

TRON Project celebrates its 10th anniversary

Personal Media begins marketing 1B/V1, a BTRON-specification OS for IBM PC compatibles

Mitsubishi Electric announces Gmicro/400 32-bit microprocessor based on the TRON VLSI CPU specification

Hitachi announces the HPT500 chip for CTRON-based systems

TRONSHOW '94 held to exhibit TRON-based products to the public

TRON Electronic Prosthetics Symposium '94 (TEPS '94) held

1995

Works solicited for the CTRON standard operating system contest

BTRON-specification 1B/V2 operating announced by Personal Media

12th TRON Project International Symposium held

TRONSHOW '95 held to exhibit TRON-based products to the public

TRON Electronic Prosthetics Symposium '95 (TEPS '95) held

Interest in TRON rises overseas; many seminars and other events held

1996

Multilingual computing project begins at the University of Tokyo

Sun Microsystems and Personal Media announce ITRON ported to the microSPARC II chip

Activities begin at the University of Tokyo's Digital Museum, which uses TRON technologies

Seiko Instruments unveils the micro-BTRON-based BrainPad TiPO personal digital assistant

13th TRON Project International Symposium held

TRONSHOW '96 held to exhibit TRON-based products to the public

TRON Electronic Prosthetics Symposium '96 (TEPS '96) held

1997

BTRON-specification 1B/V3 operating system announced by Personal Media

Interface design study group for human-machine interfaces launched

Special ITRON technical committee lanuched for automotive real-time operating system applications

University of Tokyo holds the "Open Academia" exhibit, which uses TRON technologies

BTRON-based product used at Japanese national athletic meet held at Namihaya near Osaka

Metrowerks announces CodeWarrior development environment for TiPO and BTRON

Aplix Corporation announces JBlend, a combination of Java plus ITRON (JTRON)

TRONSHOW '97 held to exhibit TRON-based products to the public

TRON Electronic Prosthetics Symposium '97 (TEPS '97) held

For more detailed information on the history of the TRON Project, please follow the links in the next section of the home page, "Current State of TRON Subarchitectures."