The main source for obtaining technical information on the TRON Project in English is, naturally, TRON Project Leader Ken Sakamura's TRON Project Web site at the University of Tokyo.
http://tron.um.u-tokyo.ac.jp/TRON/
The "um" in the above URL stands for the University Museum. Why is Prof. Sakamura at the University of Tokyo's campus museum? The reason is that he was appointed to oversee the university's "digital museum project," the object of which is to put the vast holdings of the University Museum and their descriptions in digital form for perusal by the public both inside the museum building itself and via the World Wide Web.
All aspects of the TRON Architecture and the TRON Project are covered at the above site. There is also a TRON Association Web page that provides information in both Japanese and English. It is at the following URL:
http://www.assoc.tron.org/eng/
Another site that offers extensive information on the TRON Project, unfortunately mostly in Japanese, is the Web site of Personal Media Corporation, the URL for which is:
http://www.personal-media.co.jp/
Personal Media is the main developer of BTRON-specification operating systems, applications, and related products in Japan. The company also publishes a bimonthly TRON-related magazine called TRONWARE. TRON Web, as you may have noticed, has a considerable number of translations from TRONWARE. In 2001, Personal Media has also created a Web site to support its BTRON3-specification operating system, Cho Kanji, which in its present form [Cho Kanji 3] can handle 170,000 characters. The URL to this Japanese-language Web site is:
Needless to say--and not surprisingly--the majority of Web sites offering information on the TRON Project, including several very interesting personal Web sites, are in Japanese. If you have a Japanese speaking friend who can translate for you, you might want to take a look at them. If you do not have Japanese-language software in your computer, go to the Yahoo! Web site (http://www.yahoo.com/) and click the button for the Yahoo! Japan Web site. Before you are connected, a Web page that describes where you can get the necessary Japanese-language functions will appear.
Once into Yahoo! Japan (http://www.yahoo.co.jp/), you can find links for the TRON Project by clicking the Computers and Internet heading of the main page and then clicking the Software item that appears on the following page, and finally the Operating Systems item on the page that follows. If that sounds too difficult, then just click the following link to get there in a hurry (http://dir.yahoo.co.jp/Computers_and_Internet/Software/Operating_Systems/TRON/). There were 13 TRON-related links as of October 31, 2002.
For those who think that TRON Project is "as dead as a doornail," reading through the above Web pages will provide quite an education to the contrary. Incidentally, in addition to Mr. Shin Moriyama, there is another Japanese, Mr. Masayoshi Yamazaki, who also maintains an English-language Web site called Resourceful TRON. He also speaks a little Korean.
The ITRON Project has a huge English-language Web site, which is why TRON Web doesn't carry that much information and/or technical data on ITRON. There is also an English-language Web site dedicated to ITRON run by the Embedded and Real-Time Systems Laboratory of Toyohashi University of Technology. The URLs for these Web sites are as follows:
http://www.ertl.ics.tut.ac.jp/ITRON/home-e.html
http://www.ertl.ics.tut.ac.jp/
The developer of the µBTRON-based BrainPad TiPO personal digital assistant (PDA), Seiko Instruments Inc. (http://www.sii.co.jp/), offers Japanese-language support information at the following Web site for their product, which unfortunately went out of production at the end of August 1999.
http://www.sii.co.jp/js/bas/bptipo/bptipo.htm
The TRON Project has also indirectly spawned a free operating system development movement called the B-Free Project. This project is being undertaken by a group of about 20 "B-tronophiles" who are trying to develop a Linux-like freeware version, i.e., free source code included, of the BTRON-specification operating system. (Does Linus Torvalds know his work has had this impact on the other side of the world?) The B-Free Project's Web site is at the following URL:
http://www.tron-net.gr.jp/~takada/B-Free/
Let's wish them the best of luck in their very difficult endeavor.
As for news in Japanese about the TRON Project, Mr. Kaoru Misaki, who is one of Japan's first "BTRON journalists," maintains a page that is filled with information and links about BTRON-related topics. Hats off to anyone who can make a living as a BTRON journalist.
http://member.nifty.ne.jp/misaki_kaoru/
Since old Web pages are constantly going off line and new Web pages are constantly coming on line, the Web master would appreciate any update information on the state of TRON-related Web sites. Please contact the Web master at:
Although limited in resources, TRON Web will make the greatest efforts to update TRON-related Web links for its readers.
These links were last updated on October 31, 2002.