March, April '98 News Items from the TRON Association

The following news items were complied on May 12, 1998, from news items posted on the TRON Association Web page.

March 10, 1998

Dr. Dao Trong Thi, university vice-president of Vietnam National University, visited the TRON Association on Tuesday, March 10, 1998. He was given a demonstration of the BTRON-specification operating system and its multilingual capabilities. According to his interpreter, he had no idea that Japan had developed an operating system of this type, which impressed him with its multilingual capabilities and fast responsiveness. He also wondered why the Japanese were not using this system in greater numbers.

March 25, 1998

Mr. Ma Yu Sheng, general manager of Beijing-based Computer System &Service Co.(CS&S), visited the TRON Association on Wednesday, March 25, 1998. Mr. Ma discussed TRON-related activities planned for 1998, in addition to the presentations on CTRON by researchers from Shanghai at the recently concluded 14th TRON Project International Symposium. CS&S, which has approximately 5,000 employees, is a leading Chinese software developer, which also provides training and afterservice to its customers. The firm signed a "Letter of Intent to Cooperate in the TRON Project" with the TRON Association in 1996.

April 22, 1998

The first meeting for a new study group to prepare the next generation ITRON specification, micro-ITRON4.0, was held in Tokyo on April 22, 1998. Approximately 70 people from almost 50 companies attended the meeting. At the meeting the following topics were discussed:

1. Purpose for developing micro-ITRON4.0

(1) Improving the portability of application software and software parts

(2) Enlarging the upper portions and reducing the size of the lower portions in comparison to micro-ITRON3.0

(3) Standardizing the interfaces between the kernel and the debugging environment (debugger, in-circuit emulator, logic analyzer, etc.)

2. Working groups to be established under the study group

(1) Kernel specification working group

(2) Debugging interface working group

(3) Application design guidelines working group

(4) Device driver design guidelines working group

April 23, 1998

The TRON Association has published a survey on the application of TRON-based technologies to the field of automotive and traffic systems. The contents are as follows:

Part 1: Investigative Research on the Application of TRON to Automotive/Traffic Systems

(1) Trends in car electronics

(2) Report on a questionnaire survey on real-time operating systems for automotive applications

(3) Contents, features, and activities of OSs in Japan and European (ITRON vs. OSEK/VDX)

Part 2: Investigative Research on Trends in the Utilization of Real-time OSs and ITRON

The report, which seems to be in Japanese only at this time, is available free of charge to TRON Association members, and at actual cost to non-members. Anyone interest interested a copy should contact the TRON Association. The telephone number is 03-3454-3191, and the facsimile number is 03-3454-3224.