Kronos (computer)
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Kronos is a series of
32-bit In computer architecture, 32-bit computing refers to computer systems with a processor, memory, and other major system components that operate on data in a maximum of 32- bit units. Compared to smaller bit widths, 32-bit computers can perform la ...
processor equipped
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systems, and the
workstation A workstation is a special computer designed for technical or computational science, 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 syste ...
s based thereon, of a
proprietary hardware Proprietary hardware is computer hardware whose interface is controlled by the proprietor, often under patent or trade-secret protection. Historically, most early computer hardware was designed as proprietary until the 1980s, when IBM PC chang ...
architecture developed in the mid-1980s in
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, a research city in
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, by the
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, Siberian branch,
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Computing Center, Modular Asynchronous Developable Systems (MARS) project, Kronos Research Group (KRG).


History

In 1984, the Kronos Research Group (KRG) was founded by four students of the
Novosibirsk State University Novosibirsk State University (NSU) is a public research university located in Novosibirsk, Russia. The university was founded in 1958, on the principles of integration of education and science, early involvement of students with research act ...
, two from the mathematics department (Dmitry "Leo" Kuznetsov, Alex Nedoria) and two from the physics department (Eugene Tarasov, Vladimir Vasekin). At that time, the main objective was to build home computers for the KRG members. In 1985, the group joined the Russian fifth generation computer project START, in which Kronos became a platform for developing multiprocessor reconfigurable ''Modular Asynchronous Developable Systems'' (MARS), and played a lead role in developing the first Russian full 32-bit workstation and its software. During 7 years (1984–1991) the group designed and implemented: * Kronos 2.1 and 2.2 – 32-bit processor boards for DEC LSI-11 * Kronos 2.5 – 32-bit processor board for Labtam computers * Kronos 2.6 – 32-bit workstation The project START was finished in 1988. During the post-START years (1988–1991), several Russian industrial organizations expressed interest in continuing the Kronos development and some had been involved in facilitating the construction of Kronos and MARS prototypes, including the design of a Kronos-on-chip. However, changing funding levels and the chaotic economic situation during
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kept those plans from being realized.


Architecture

The Kronos
instruction set architecture In computer science, an instruction set architecture (ISA) is an abstract model that generally defines how software controls the CPU in a computer or a family of computers. A device or program that executes instructions described by that ISA, ...
was based on
Niklaus Wirth Niklaus Emil Wirth ( IPA: ) (15 February 1934 – 1 January 2024) was a Swiss computer scientist. He designed several programming languages, including Pascal, and pioneered several classic topics in software engineering. In 1984, he won the Tu ...
's
Modula-2 Modula-2 is a structured, procedural programming language developed between 1977 and 1985/8 by Niklaus Wirth at ETH Zurich. It was created as the language for the operating system and application software of the Lilith personal workstation. It w ...
workstation
Lilith Lilith (; ), also spelled Lilit, Lilitu, or Lilis, is a feminine figure in Mesopotamian and Jewish mythology, theorized to be the first wife of Adam and a primordial she-demon. Lilith is cited as having been "banished" from the Garden of Eden ...
, developed at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (
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) of
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Switzerland, which in turn was inspired by the
Xerox Alto The Xerox Alto is a computer system developed at Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) in the 1970s. It is considered one of the first workstations or personal computers, and its development pioneered many aspects of modern computing. It featu ...
developed at
Xerox PARC Future Concepts division (formerly Palo Alto Research Center, PARC and Xerox PARC) is a research and development company in Palo Alto, California. It was founded in 1969 by Jacob E. "Jack" Goldman, chief scientist of Xerox Corporation, as a div ...
. The Modula-2-based Kronos was quite amenable to the basic principles of MARS, as Modula-2 is fundamentally modular, allowing programs to be partitioned into units with relatively well defined interfaces. These interfaces supported separate compiling of modules, and separating of module specifications from their implementation. The primary difference between Lilith and Kronos was that the processor of Lilith was
16-bit 16-bit microcomputers are microcomputers that use 16-bit microprocessors. A 16-bit register can store 216 different values. The range of integer values that can be stored in 16 bits depends on the integer representation used. With the two ...
, while Kronos was 32-bit and incorporated several extensions to the instruction set to accommodate the inter-processor communication needed in MARS. Kronos satisfied many aspects of the
reduced instruction set computer In electronics and computer science, a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) is a computer architecture designed to simplify the individual instructions given to the computer to accomplish tasks. Compared to the instructions given to a com ...
(RISC) design, although it was not pure RISC: the evaluation stack was used to evaluate expressions and to hold parameters for procedure calls. Since most executed instructions were encoded in a single byte, the object code for Kronos was very compact. Although Kronos was a proprietary processor, it was well suited to applications which were sensitive to high programmability rather than to software compatibility. For example, embedded control systems require fast and reliable design of new original applications for controlling unique objects and processes. Modula-2 was then a perfect language for this purpose, and Kronos was a perfect processor to effectively run the Modula-2 software.


Hardware

An advanced version of Kronos was based on a 32-bit stack-type КА1845ВМ1 processor, КА1845ВС1 data processing unit, and УУП memory control unit. All the three were designed and fabricated by КНИИМП, Kiev Research Institute of Microdevices.
КА1845ВМ1
had 246 commands, which allowed supporting Modula-2 language. It also featured hardware support of interrupts and process synchronization. The CPU was fabricated in a 2.5 um CMOS technology with two layers of metallization and packaged in a planar 84-pin metal-polymer case. It contains 199 thousands elements and has area of 8.55x8.1 mm^2. The maximum clock frequency is 10 MHz.

contained ALU, 8x32 stack, matrix shifter, 16x32 register block, and status flag multiplexers. The amount of addressable memory is 4 GB. The chip area is 5.8x5.25 mm^2, 16 thousand elements.

provided operation with virtual memory up to 4 GB. It contains a data cache (128x32), a redirect buffer (128x40), a dynamic RAM controller, and an error detection and correction circuit. Memory access time does nor exceed 100 ns. УУП chip contains 102 thousands elements and has area of 9.1x7.3 mm^2.


Software

The Kronos software included: *Versions of the proprietary operating system Excelsior *Compilers for Modula-2, C, and Fortran *CAD systems *Other applications


Operating system

The Kronos workstation includes an
operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...
named ''Excelsior'', developed by the Kronos Research Group (KRG). It is a single user system based on Modula-2 modules. In design, it is similar to the OS '' Medos-2'', developed for the Lilith workstation, at ETH Zurich, by Svend Erik Knudsen with advice from Niklaus Wirth. & dpunkt, .


References


External links

* , history in Russian
The Kronos Research Group
recovered from
Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...

A Brief History of Modula and Lilith


* ttp://code.google.com/p/kronos/ Historical source code from Kronos 198x USSR 32-bit workstationbr>Emulator for the Kronos workstation
(via Internet Archive) runs on Windows-NT; tested thereon successfully. Two logins are possible: sys or guest, both password free. See also
More Documentation of Kronos in Russian
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kronos (Computer) Computer workstations Soviet computer systems