The Ceres Workstation was a

workstation A workstation is a special computer designed for technical or scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by a single user, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating systems. The term ''workstat ...

computer built by

Niklaus Wirth Niklaus Emil Wirth (born 15 February 1934) is a Swiss computer scientist. He has designed several programming languages, including Pascal, and pioneered several classic topics in software engineering. In 1984, he won the Turing Award, generally ...

's group at ETH Zurich in 1987.The

central processing unit A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just Processor (computing), processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes Instruction (computing), instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU per ...

(CPU) is a

National Semiconductor National Semiconductor was an American semiconductor manufacturer which specialized in analog devices and subsystems, formerly with headquarters in Santa Clara, California. The company produced power management integrated circuits, display dr ...

NS32000 The NS32000, sometimes known as the 32k, is a series of microprocessors produced by National Semiconductor. The first member of the family came to market in 1982, briefly known as the 16032 before becoming the 32016. It was the first 32-bit genera ...

, and the

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also i ...

, named '' Oberon System'' is written fully in the

object-oriented programming Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm based on the concept of "objects", which can contain data and code. The data is in the form of fields (often known as attributes or ''properties''), and the code is in the form of ...

language

Oberon Oberon () is a king of the fairies in medieval and Renaissance literature. He is best known as a character in William Shakespeare's play ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'', in which he is King of the Fairies and spouse of Titania, Queen of the Fairi ...

. It is an early example of an operating system using basic object-oriented principles and

garbage collection Waste collection is a part of the process of waste management. It is the transfer of solid waste from the point of use and disposal to the point of treatment or landfill. Waste collection also includes the curbside collection of recyclabl ...

on the system level and a document centered approach for the

user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine f ...

(UI), as envisaged later with

OpenDoc OpenDoc is a defunct multi-platform software componentry framework standard created by Apple in the 1990s for compound documents, intended as an alternative to Microsoft's proprietary Object Linking and Embedding (OLE). It is one of Apple's e ...

. Ceres was a follow-up project to the

Lilith Lilith ( ; he, לִילִית, Līlīṯ) is a female figure in Mesopotamian and Judaic mythology, alternatively the first wife of Adam and supposedly the primordial she-demon. Lilith is cited as having been "banished" from the Garden of Ed ...

workstation, based on AMD

bit slicing Bit slicing is a technique for constructing a processor from modules of processors of smaller bit width, for the purpose of increasing the word length; in theory to make an arbitrary ''n''-bit central processing unit (CPU). Each of these com ...

technology and the

programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language. The description of a programming ...

Modula-2. On the same hardware, Clemens Szyperski implemented as part of his

Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

(PhD) thesis, an operating system named ETHOS, which takes full advantage of object-oriented technologies. A Usenet posting by Szyperski says Oberon/F, renamed

BlackBox Component Builder BlackBox Component Builder is an integrated development environment (IDE) optimized for component-based software development developed by a small spin-off company, Oberon microsystems AG, of ETH Zurich in Switzerland. The IDE consists of develop ...

, incorporates many ETHOS ideas and principles.

Links

ETH Computer Science History: Lilith & Ceres

Ceres-1
an
Ceres-3
at the Computer History Museum, Mountain View, California, USA (see also its publications, especially pages 6 & 7 o
Core 3.1
* (ETH Technical Report 93) * (ETH Technical Report 168)

References

{{Compu-hardware-stub Computer workstations