Show HN: A Project Oberon System version running on RISC-V instead of RISC-5

Show HN: A Project Oberon System version running on RISC-V instead of RISC-5(github.com)

52 points by Rochus 3 hours ago | 15 comments

Love your commitment to this. You are doing excellent work to keep Wirth's computing spirit alive. Oberon's philosophy ( https://people.inf.ethz.ch/wirth/Oberon/Oberon07.Report.pdf ) is beautiful for the power it hides behind its simplicity and I wish it was a more popular language ...

Rochus 1 hour ago | |

Thanks. Though I migrated the code from Oberon-07 to Oberon 90 (so I could compile it with my OP2 version) and currently I even migrate it to my forthcoming Micron language. The Project Oberon System is very well suited for these kinds of experiments.

tosh 9 minutes ago |

what does RISC-V instead of RISC-5 mean?

tosh 8 minutes ago | |

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RISC5

cxr 1 hour ago |

Readers encountering this project for the first time should be aware that the earlier Oberon-on-RISC-V project <https://github.com/solbjorg/oberon-riscv> (HN discussion: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25497002>) exists and was already discussed on the mailing list:

<https://lists.inf.ethz.ch/pipermail/oberon/2026/017161.html>

clbrmbr 1 hour ago |

Would it be practical to have the ESP P4 self-host?

Rochus 1 hour ago | |

The ESP32-P4 is actually my target platform. I have a cross-compiler toolchain based on my own OP2 compiler version (see https://github.com/rochus-keller/op2/) which makes it easier to migrate. The Project Oberon System is an "intermezzo" for my actual goal, the Oberon System 3; the latter can also run my OP2 version and would thus be able to self-host. I didn't try yet to run OP2 under the Project Oberon System, but with some patience I assume it is feasible.

berkeleynerd 1 hour ago | | |

This is super interesting Rochus. Are you targeting Oberon System 3 in particular because it adds tcp/ip networking support? In my opinion that would make it a much more interesting system to kick the tires on, if so!

OCTAGRAM 2 hours ago |

> The whole system runs on a low-cost development board (Xilinx Spartan-3 by Digilent, with 1 MB of static RAM)

If somebody wants their FPGA work to be available, they better choose MiSTer FPGA from the beginning. Costlier, but way more likely to be found around.

Rochus 2 hours ago | |

The availability of the board to run Wirt's system was an issue pretty soon. There were even people who offered their own boards to fill the gap (e.g. https://web.archive.org/web/20160831063355/http://oberonstat...).

My system version instead runs on RISC-V, so no custom FPGA implementation, currently on an emulator, but eventually on the ESP32 (which has a much better availability).

Joker_vD 1 hour ago | |

> they better choose MiSTer FPGA from the beginning.

Well, the MiSTer project was yet 4 years from being launched back in 2013 when the RISC-5 was implemented in FPGA, so I hope you'd excuse Wirth from not choosing it.

Rochus 1 hour ago | | |

And shortly after Wirth launched his RISC-5 system, the original FPGA board went out of production.