Kronos (computer)
Encyclopedia
Kronos is a 32-bit workstation of a proprietary architecture developed in the mid-1980s in Akademgorodok
, a research center of the Russian Academy of Science near Novosibirsk
.
Instruction set design was based on Niklaus Wirth
's Modula-2
workstation Lilith
, developed at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, which in turn was inspired by the legendary Alto (computer) developed at Xerox PARC
.
The Kronos Research Group (KRG) was founded in 1984 by four students of the Novosibirsk State University
, two from the Mathematical 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 modular multiprocessor reconfigurable systems MARS and played a leading role in the development of the first Russian full 32-bit workstation and its software.
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 compilation of modules and separation of the module specifications from their implementation. The primary difference between Lilith and Kronos was that the latter was a 32-bit processor, compared with 16-bit Lilith, and Kronos incorporated a number of extensions to the instruction set to accommodate the inter-processor communication necessary in MARS. Kronos satisfied many aspects of the RISC design, though it was not pure RISC: the evaluation stack was used to evaluate expressions and to hold parameters for procedure calls. Since most of executed instructions were encoded in a single byte, the object code for Kronos was very compact. Though Kronos was a proprietary processor, it nicely suited the 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 a perfect language at that time for this purpose and Kronos was a perfect processor to effectively run the Modula-2 software.
During 7 years (1984-1991) the group has designed and implemented:
The Kronos software included: several versions of the proprietary operating system Excelsior; the Modula-2, C, and FORTRAN compilers; several CAD systems, and several other applications.
The project START was finished in 1988. During the post-START years (1988-91), a number of Russian industrial organizations had expressed interest in continuing the Kronos development and some has been involved into facilitating the construction of Kronos and MARS prototypes, including the design of a Kronos-on-chip. Nevertheless, changing in funding levels and the overall economical environment during perestroika
did not allow those plans to be realized.
Akademgorodok
Akademgorodok , is a part of the Russian city Novosibirsk, located 20 km south of the city center. It is the educational and scientific centre of Siberia...
, a research center of the Russian Academy of Science near Novosibirsk
Novosibirsk
Novosibirsk is the third-largest city in Russia, after Moscow and Saint Petersburg, and the largest city of Siberia, with a population of 1,473,737 . It is the administrative center of Novosibirsk Oblast as well as of the Siberian Federal District...
.
Instruction set design was based on Niklaus Wirth
Niklaus Wirth
Niklaus Emil Wirth is a Swiss computer scientist, best known for designing several programming languages, including Pascal, and for pioneering several classic topics in software engineering. In 1984 he won the Turing Award for developing a sequence of innovative computer languages.-Biography:Wirth...
's Modula-2
Modula-2
Modula-2 is a computer programming language designed and developed between 1977 and 1980 by Niklaus Wirth at ETH Zurich as a revision of Pascal to serve as the sole programming language for the operating system and application software for the personal workstation Lilith...
workstation Lilith
Lilith (computer)
Lilith is the name of custom built workstation using the AMD 2901 bit-slice processor by the group of Niklaus Wirth at ETH Zürich. The project started in 1977 and by 1984 several hundred workstations were in use. It had a high resolution full page display, a mouse, a laser printer interface, and a...
, developed at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, which in turn was inspired by the legendary Alto (computer) developed at Xerox PARC
Xerox PARC
PARC , formerly Xerox PARC, is a research and co-development company in Palo Alto, California, with a distinguished reputation for its contributions to information technology and hardware systems....
.
The Kronos Research Group (KRG) was founded in 1984 by four students of the Novosibirsk State University
Novosibirsk State University
Novosibirsk State University was founded in May 1959 in the USSR by Soviet academicians Mikhail Alekseevich Lavrentiev, Sergei Lvovich Sobolev and Sergey Alekseyevich Khristianovich in a program of establishing a Siberian branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences...
, two from the Mathematical 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 modular multiprocessor reconfigurable systems MARS and played a leading role in the development of the first Russian full 32-bit workstation and its software.
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 compilation of modules and separation of the module specifications from their implementation. The primary difference between Lilith and Kronos was that the latter was a 32-bit processor, compared with 16-bit Lilith, and Kronos incorporated a number of extensions to the instruction set to accommodate the inter-processor communication necessary in MARS. Kronos satisfied many aspects of the RISC design, though it was not pure RISC: the evaluation stack was used to evaluate expressions and to hold parameters for procedure calls. Since most of executed instructions were encoded in a single byte, the object code for Kronos was very compact. Though Kronos was a proprietary processor, it nicely suited the 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 a perfect language at that time for this purpose and Kronos was a perfect processor to effectively run the Modula-2 software.
During 7 years (1984-1991) the group has designed and implemented:
- Kronos 2.1 and Kronos 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 Kronos software included: several versions of the proprietary operating system Excelsior; the Modula-2, C, and FORTRAN compilers; several CAD systems, and several other applications.
The project START was finished in 1988. During the post-START years (1988-91), a number of Russian industrial organizations had expressed interest in continuing the Kronos development and some has been involved into facilitating the construction of Kronos and MARS prototypes, including the design of a Kronos-on-chip. Nevertheless, changing in funding levels and the overall economical environment during perestroika
Perestroika
Perestroika was a political movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during 1980s, widely associated with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev...
did not allow those plans to be realized.
External links
- The Kronos Research Group
- A Brief History of Modula and Lilith
- Acquisition of a Kronos workstation and more by the National Museum of Science and Industry in London
- Historical source code from Kronos 198x USSR 32-bit workstation
- History of the Kronos project (in Russian)
- High-Speed Computers of the Soviet Union
- Emulator for the Kronos workstation running under Windows-NT. Successfully tested under Windows XP. The following logins are possible: sys guest (both password free) See also: More Documentation of Kronos in Russian