TRON (The Real-time Operating system Nucleus) is an open architecture real-time operating system kernel design. The project was started by Ken Sakamura of the University of Tokyo in 1984. The project's goal is to create an ideal computer architecture and network, to provide for all of society's needs. For different scenarios, the need for different OS kernels was identified. (See, for example, papers written in English in TRON Project 1988 )

The Industrial TRON (ITRON) derivative was one of the world's most used operating systems in 2003, being present in billions of electronic devices such as mobile phones, appliances and even cars. However, a dearth of quality English documentation was said to hinder its broader adoption. The situation has improved since TRON Forum has taken over the activities to support TRON Project since 2015. (See the specification page that lists many English documents. )

The focus of these activities was a non-profit organization called TRON Association which acted as the communication hub for the parties concerned with the development of ITRON specification OS and its users in many fields including home electronics, smart house industry, etc.

In 2002, T-Engine Forum was formed to provide an open source RTOS implementation that supersedes the ITRON specification OS, and provides binary compatibility additionally. The new RTOS was T-Kernel. The activities of TRON Association to support TRON Project were taken over by T-Engine Forum in 2010. In 2015, T-Engine Forum changed its name into TRON Forum.

Today, ITRON specification OS and T-Kernel RTOS are supported by popular Secure Socket Layer (SSL) and Transport Layer Security (TLS) libraries such as wolfSSL.

History

In 1984, the TRON project was officially launched. In 1985, NEC announced the first ITRON implementation based on the ITRON/86 specification. In 1986, the TRON Kyogikai (unincorporated TRON Association) was established, Hitachi announced its ITRON implementation based on the ITRON/68K specification, and the first TRON project symposium is held. In 1987, Fujitsu announced an ITRON implementation based on the ITRON/MMU specification. based on the TRON VLSI CPU specification.

In 1988, BTRON computer prototypes were being tested in various schools across Japan as the planned standardized computer for education. The project was organized by both the Ministry of International Trade and Industry and the Ministry of Education. However, Scott Callon of Stanford University writes that the project ran into some issues, such as BTRON being incompatible with existing DOS-based PCs and software. In the 1980s Microsoft had at least once lobbied Washington about TRON until backing off, but Ken Sakamura himself believed Microsoft wasn't the impetus behind the Super-301 listing in 1989. Known for his off the cuff remarks, in 2004 governor of Tokyo Shintaro Ishihara mentioned in his column post concerning international trade policy that TRON was dropped because Carla Anderson Hills had threatened Ryutaro Hashimoto over it.

On 10 November 2017, TRON Forum, headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, which has been maintaining the TRON Project since 2010, has agreed with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, headquartered in the US, to share the copyrights of TRON μT-Kernel 2.0 specification, the most recent version of T-Kernel (the successor of the original ITRON) for free. This was to facilitate the creation of IEEE standard of RTOS based on μT-Kernel specification.

Stephen Dukes, Standards Committee, vice chair, IEEE Consumer Electronics Society of that time said that IEEE will "accelerate standards development and streamline global distribution" through the agreement.

On September 11, 2018, "IEEE 2050-2018 - IEEE Standard for a Real-Time Operating System (RTOS) for Small-Scale Embedded Systems", a standard based on "μT-Kernel 2.0 was officially approved as an IEEE standard.

In May 2023, the IEEE recognized the RTOS, proposed, created, and released by TRON Project, as an IEEE Milestone, titled "TRON Real-time Operating System Family, 1984." The certified Milestone plaque is installed on the campus of the University of Tokyo, where Ken Sakamura, the leader of TRON Project, worked as a research assistant in 1984.

Architecture

TRON does not specify the source code for the kernel, but instead is a "set of interfaces and design guidelines" for creating the kernel. This allows different companies to create their own versions of TRON, based on the specifications, which can be suited for different microprocessors.

While the specification of TRON is publicly available, implementations can be proprietary at the discretion of the implementer.

The TRON framework defines a complete architecture for the different computing units:

  • ITRON (Industrial TRON): an architecture for real-time operating systems for embedded systems; this is the most popular use of the TRON architecture
  • JTRON (Java TRON): a sub-project of ITRON to allow it to use the Java platform
  • BTRON (Business TRON): for personal computers, workstations, PDAs, mainly as the human–machine interface in networks based on the TRON architecture
  • CTRON (Central and Communications TRON): for mainframe computers, digital switching equipment
  • MTRON (Macro TRON): for intercommunication between the different TRON components.
  • STRON (Silicon TRON): hardware implementation of a real-time kernel.
  • TRON (encoding), a way that TRON represents characters (as opposed to Unicode).

Administration

The TRON project was administered by the TRON Association for a long time. After it was integrated into T-Engine Forum in 2010, and T-Engine Forum changed its name to TRON Forum in 2015, TRON Forum has supported the TRON Project by acting as the communication hub for the parties involved.

See also

  • ITRON
  • T-Kernel
  • Micro T-Kernel

References

  • TRON Web
  • TRON specifications in English
  • B-Free in Japanese; Free BTRON OS project; archived