ITRON Newsletter No.19 (HTML Edition)

ITRON Technical Committee, TRON Association
Katsuta Building 5F, 3-39, Mita 1-chome, Minato-ku, Tokyo 108, JAPAN
TEL: (03) 3454-3191
FAX: (03) 3454-3224

About the ITRON Newsletter

The ITRON Technical Committee issues this newsletter on a bimonthly basis, in the interests of making widely available various information on the ITRON subproject and on the committee's work. Updates to ITRON specifications and corrections to publications issued by the committee are also presented here. Another purpose is to introduce products and publications related to the ITRON specifications, and announce events such as exhibitions and seminars.

The ITRON Newsletter is carried in both the TRON Bimonthly and in TRONWARE, as well as being offered via the Internet on our Web page. Anyone wishing to contribute an article is invited to contact the ITRON Technical Committee.

Registration System for ITRON-related Products and Applications

The products listed below were newly registered in the period through February 1, 1996. The list of previously registered products is here.

Details of the product registration system can be obtained by contacting the TRON Association.

Newly Registered Products (Jun. 1, 1995 - Feb. 1, 1996)
Specification  Product Name  Processor  Company
µITRON2.0 NORTi/H83 H8/300H Miyazaki System Design Co.
NORTi/Z80 Z80 Miyazaki System Design Co.

ITRON-related Publications

Listed below are the publications prepared and issued by the ITRON Technical Committee as of February 1, 1996. The ITRON-µITRON Standard Handbook is a one-volume compilation of µITRON (Ver 2.0) and ITRON2 specifications. Each of the publications below can be obtained directly from the sources indicated.

The latest version of µITRON3.0 is Ver 3.02.00. Changes made since the µITRON3.0 Standard Handbook was released (Ver 3.00.00) are noted in Newsletter No.5 and No.11, as well as in ITRON Standard Guidebook 2.

The ITRON Standard Guidebook 2, which is a general introduction to the ITRON specifications, deals primarily with µITRON3.0. Meanwhile, the earlier ITRON Standard Guidebook '92-'93 remains as a valuable reference for use with the µITRON (Ver 2.0) and ITRON2 specifications, even though the dates in its title are now past.

ITRON-related Publications
Name Type Price Publisher Issued ISBN No.
ITRON-µITRON Standard Handbook Specification (Jap.) 4,800Yen Personal Media Co. 1990 ISBN4-89362-079-7
µITRON3.0 Standard Handbook Specification (Jap.) 4,000Yen Personal Media Co. 1993 ISBN4-89362-106-8
ITRON/FILE Standard Handbook Specification (Jap.) 3,000Yen Personal Media Co. 1992 ISBN4-89362-092-4
ITRON Standard Guidebook '92-'93 Textbook (Jap.) 3,500Yen Personal Media Co. 1992 ISBN4-89362-197-6
ITRON Standard Guidebook 2 Textbook (Jap.) 3,500Yen Personal Media Co. 1994 ISBN4-89362-133-5
µITRON Specification Ver 2.01.00.00 Specification (Eng.) 12,000Yen TRON Association 1989 -
ITRON2 Specification Ver 2.02.00.10 Specification (Eng.) 15,000Yen TRON Association 1990 -
µITRON3.0 Specification Ver 3.02.00 Specification (Eng.) - TRON Association 1994 -
NOTES:
- Prices do not include consumption tax.
- The documents issued by the TRON Association are available to Association members at a special discount rate.
- English-language specifications are distributed free of charge from here.

New Products

The products introduced below have been newly registered under the ITRON product registration system.

NORTi/H83, NORTi/Z80
Miyazaki System Design Co.

Product summary

NORTi/H83 and NORTi/Z80 are real-time operating systems for the Hitachi H8/300H and Z80 processors, respectively. Both products implement Ver.2.0 of the µITRON specification.

Features

Low-cost OS
NORTi/H83 and NORTi/Z80 sell for under 100,000 yen, and no royalty fees are charged for employing them in commercial systems.

Provided complete with source code
The kernel is supplied in library format, but the entire source code is provided as well.

Bundled with NORTi/PC
The package includes NORTi/PC, which runs on DOS. A personal computer can be used along with Microsoft C or Turbo C for hands on practice in the use of a µITRON-specification OS.

Prompt support
The developer of this software provides active backup mainly in the form of user support, so that even someone new to µITRON can begin using it with assurance.

Supported Compilers

One package is supported by multiple compilers. NORTi/H83 can be used with either the ICC H8/300H or Hitachi's C compiler, while NORTi/Z80 is supported by both the ICC Z80 and LSI C-80 compilers.

The NORTi Series

The NORTi Series also includes the NORTi/86, NORTi/68K, and NORTi/PowerPC models. Each OS in the series follows the same consistent conventions, an advantage especially for users of multiple processor platforms.

A word from the developer

"Even people who have never used a real-time OS before now have an easy way to get started with a µITRON-specification OS. And once they gain familiarity with the product they will wonder how they ever developed without it. That's the beauty of NORTi."

Recent Works on ITRON

The December issue of IEEE MICRO includes an article by the University of Tokyo's Hiroaki Takada and Ken Sakamura on "µITRON for Small-Scale Embedded Systems." Besides introducing the µITRON specifications and their status today, the article gives an outline of µITRON bus, a low-cost control-use LAN specification being researched mainly in the Sakamura Laboratory. The issue happens to be the annual special issue on Japan and Asia, with Dr. Sakamura serving as Guest Editor. In addition to the article on µITRON it features four articles by Japanese semiconductor companies.

HiVi, a monthly magazine published by Stereo Sound and covering audio and video products, in its January 1996 issue carries an article by Toshiaki Natsume entitled, "What Is TRON?" The article gives a brief introduction to the TRON Project, and describes how ITRON specifications are used in a number of consumer electronics products. Although µITRON is mistakenly written as µTRON, the article provides a readable account of the project aimed at the general public.

! This newsletter is a special edition for WWW of the one appeared in TRONWARE vol.38 and TRON PROJECT BIMONTHLY No.43.

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