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News from the Modula-2 World

07/06/2008
A new project was started at SourceForge.net. It is called Modula2Plugin and still in a very early planning stage. Description from the project page: "The goal of this project is to provide an IDE for Modula-2 in the form of a plug-in for Eclipse and/or an add-in for Visual Studio (2008). It will be integrated with the XDS Modula-2 compiler."

07/01/2008
Tom Breeden published a beta version of Aglet Modula-2, a compiler generating native PPC code he developed for Amiga OS4. Beta means please help in testing.

06/29/2008
A special version of Rowley Modula-2 is now available from the languages section of Ram Meenakshisundaram's Transputer Home Page at classiccmp.org. While I knew there were versions of this compiler for OS-9/68K this seems to be a version for the Transputer HeliOS system. I didn't manage to open the archive so anyone out there who knows more?

06/15/2008
Gaius Mulley reports recent changes to GNU Modula-2 to the gm2 mailing list: "With these fixes and additions the examples in gm2/examples/swig work. Specifically it now allows users to create shared libraries given an implementation module. The examples/swig/strio will now flush the buffers during the FINALLY statement sequence. Thus users should be able to implement Python modules using GNU Modula-2, so long as the top level definition module uses base types."

05/04/2008
Some messages to the GNU Modula-2 mailing list document recent changes to the GNU Modula-2 compiler. There is also a message requesting your opinion about the implementation of shared library support. Finally basic Swig support is now available. "This allows scripting languages (perl, python and tcl) to access Modula-2 implementation modules." (Information about Swig).

04/21/2008
The sources of Medos have recently been announced and are now available. Medos was the operating system of the Lilith workstation, the famous computer designed by Niklaus Wirth.
An updated version of the QDTools package by P. Guiochon is available from the download area.
And the latest changelog of GNU Modula-2 was posted to the mailing list.

04/14/2008
Two recent messages by Gaius Mulley to the GNU Modula-2 mailing list document a lot of changes to the compiler. New data types and support for exceptions are only two examples from a long list of changes. Some explanations and clarifications can be found in another message.

03/09/2008
Files needed for Modula-2 syntax highlighting with Notepad++ are now available from the download-area. A short readme is included in the archive. Thanks a lot for providing your work!

02/26/2008
I just built GNU Modula-2 using the Cygwin Layer on a Windows Vista Laptop [UPDATE: download the build (~19MB)]. It compiled and installed out of the box (using the latest archive gcc-4.1.2+gm2-cvs-latest.tar.gz). I built a simple hello world program just to test functionality: GM2 and Vista - impressive (more information).
Some Modula-2 enthusiasts may be interested in a bunch of documents related to the Lilith personal computer. Chris Burrows found them and they are available from Bitsavers.org.
Some of you may also be interested in a syntax highlighter for Notepad++ which can be requested via email.

02/18/2008
Looking around I found a page entitled Objective Modula-2 1.00 (Reference Implementation). Another infunctional link can be found at Softpedia. Both links were added in july 2007 and are broken at the moment (old infunctional adress). "Objective Modula-2 is an extension to Modula-2 which follows the Objective-C object model and retains the bracketed Smalltalk message passing syntax introduced in Objective-C. Like Objective-C, Objective Modula-2 is a reflective, object oriented programming language with both static and dynamic typing. It is intended as a safer alternative to Objective-C for Cocoa and GNUstep software development. It retains most of Modula-2's features, most importantly data encapsulation with nested modules, explicit import and export lists and strict type checking" (description taken from Wikipedia). Does anybody have more information? Who is the developer mentioned at the listed sites?

02/11/2008
Interesting news from the GNU Modula-2 mailing list. Gaius Mulley uploaded some screen-casts to show you the complete process of building the GNU Modula-2 compiler. "If anyone is wanting to build GNU Modula-2, but is a little unsure how to go about it then this is how I build it on a Debian Etch 64bit machine."
David Moreno, developer of Modulipse, sent a message to the GNU Modula-2 mailing list describing howto build the compiler on a computer running Microsoft Windows using a Cygwin environment. Please note that some of the steps he describes are no longer necessary as they were applied to the sources of the compiler already.
Last but not least you may be interested in the latest changes to the gm2 compiler.

01/23/2008
Modulipse, the Modula-2 IDE based on the Eclipse platform, got a homepage now.

01/21/2008
GNU Modula-2 now supports constant literal constructors conforming to the ISO Modula-2 standard. Gaius Mulley reported this and a lot of other recent changes to the GNU Modula-2 mailing list. The archive of the mailing list also contains a thread called Modula-2 IDE which informs about Modulipse and the Alpha editor family. The latter provides a powerful Modula-2 mode and recently added support for GNU Modula-2.

01/13/2008
Modulipse 0.0.2 was released last friday. The changelog informs about the following changes: procedure folding now works correctly for nested procedures, there is an overlay icon to distinguish Modula-2 projects now, code templates for procedure definitions were added, the user guide has been updated and reorganized, and unnecessary classes and icons were removed.

01/04/2008
A happy new year to those who care. While the world still sticks to programming in C++, Java and other languages, some may be interested in algorithms written in Modula-2 by Thomas Maurer. He publishes these every now and then. And if you are already there, have a look at his Murus project which is constantly evolving and changing and improving. There is also Murus.org. Translations of (parts of) Murus will eventually be made available by Jan Verhoeven, maintainer of the Mocka and Modula-2 group.

12/25/2007
Jos� David Moreno Ju�rez released a first version of Modulipse a Modula-2 IDE for Eclipse. There are binary packages for Win32, Linux/gtk/x86, MacOSX (ppc and x86) and Solaris/gtk. Sources are also available. Those who have Eclipse installed can simply point the Eclipse update manager to the update site at http://modulipse.sourceforge.net. [UPDATE:] I tested this on Debian testing and installed it on Windows Vista and it works fine. While the integration with GNU Modula-2 works fine under Linux I guess I will have to use XDS Modula-2 under Vista for now. There is also a Wiki for the project now. And here is a link to the Modulipse download page.

12/08/2007
Gaius Mulley informs about the latest changes to GNU Modula-2. You may also be interested in a new page which informs about regression tests the GNU Modula-2 does and does not pass (announcement).

10/25/2007
Debian (Etch) packages of GNU Modula-2 targeting ARM are now available. Gaius Mulley, developer of GNU Modula-2, assembled packages for ppc64 (ps3), i386 and amd64.

10/14/2007
The Q&D Tools package available from the local download area was updated recently. Some bugs were fixed, some features added, as P. Guiochon, author of the pack reported. Binaries of some of the utilities included will be part of a FreeDOS distribution.

10/09/2007
Google's advanced code search is getting better and better. It is possible to search for Modula-2 code for some time now but while the search didn't come up with many (interesting) hits in the early days it is now a very well working tool. It reveals interesting code, snippets and libraries, especially if one invests some time. An example.
Other news: New Modulipse screenshots are available demonstrating independence of platforms and languages.

10/06/2007
GNU Modula-2 0.62 is out. All options which refer to code generation are now invoked by -f. A Logitech Modula-2 compatible module BlockOps is now available. Access to the 'memmove' builtin was also introduced. Read the announcement to the gm2 mailing list or view the full changelog.

09/30/2007
A member of the Mocka Modula-2 Yahoo Group announced a modified Mocka Modula-2 distribution which produces small binaries consuming very few ressources. More information is available. [UPDATE:] The Mocka package is available from the download area of the group now.
Other news: The latest changes to GNU Modula-2 were announced to the GNU Modula-2 mailing list.

09/20/2007
Les May reminded me of a package I created some time ago to keep FST Modula-2 alive. While there were some problems with it for users of Windos 2000, Windows XP seems to be a better choice for users of this great tool. I also tested the pack with Vista and did not have any problems. But I do not know and I do not want to know what happens to your computers when trying to start one of the system-near example programs which usually interrupted the flow of things.
As also proposed via the guestbook I added the freeware Editor PSPad to my list of Modula-2 aware editors.

09/04/2007
Jan Verhoeven made available a Dutch version of Niklaus Wirths book Compiler construction. The book dates back to 1986 and describes how to build a PL/0 compiler. Translators are invited to help us non-Dutch-speaking people out. More details are available at the Mocka and Modula-2 mailing list.

08/19/2007
Great news. GNU Modula-2 0.61 is out "which is available in source form or as a Debian binary for i386, ppc64 (PlayStation 3) and amd64".

08/13/2007
Gaius Mulley announced the availability of GNU Modula-2 packages containing a cross compiler for building ATMega8 binaries. Some instructions and a simple example are available to add the packages to your system and test the compiler.

07/17/2007
GNU Modula-2 now builds with a patched version of gcc 4.1.2; The latest message of Gaius Mulley to the gm2 mailing list has more on a huge number of recent changes (ChangeLog).

05/28/2007
Snowman, moderator of the XDS Forum, elaborates on the 64 bit future of Excelsiors Modula-2/Oberon-2 compiler (scroll down to find the message).
Other news: If you do not follow the GNU Modula-2 mailing list, there is an interesting message containing details on the latest changes to the compiler sources.

05/16/2007
New screenshots of Modulipse, a project to integrate Eclipse and GNU Modula-2, are available since may 1st. They demonstrate the ISO awareness of the project which will hopefully be available to the public soon. Jose David Moreno, creator of the project, also said he doesn't plan to add support for other compilers than GNU Modula-2 but it won't be too hard to code new features.
Other news: There is some noise in the Excelsior XDS Forum which may contain interesting bits and pieces for some of us. User Uranus also reminds us of the second birthday of the XDS Modula-2/Oberon-2 freeware release.

05/05/2007
Some time ago I uploaded a Wikipedia stub on Modula-2+. Everyone who knows more is invited to extend the article.

04/21/2007
The Free Modula-2 Pages celebrated their fifth birthday on April 17. Thanks to all who participate(d) and support(ed) the project.

04/18/2007
A kind visitor told me about the appearence of some screenshots related to a project called Modulipse which seems to be about Modula-2 support for the Eclipse IDE/platform/whatever. Does anyone have more information? This looks interesting...

04/16/2007
The Free Modula-2 Pages News Feed is now available. For those who have problems with using this there is an introduction (Wikipedia).

03/18/2007
A final update for the QDTools package is now available from the download area. Some bugs got fixed, some things were added like partial support for long filenames. For brave users of the command line there are some really interesting programs in there.

03/16/2007
Medcalc - a program nearly completely written in Stonybrook Modula-2 - received its certification for Windows Vista. "MedCalc is a complete statistical program for Windows designed to closely match the requirements of biomedical researchers. It is fast, user-friendly and reliable." The program is a commercial product but it is possible to download a free trial version from the homepage. The program does not only show the power of Modula-2 and of course its user but also demonstrates that a Modula-2 compiler which has been developed for an older Windows operating system is perfectly usable for projects targeted to Windows Vista.

03/07/2007
My email-provider is no longer reachable. First there was no more spam, now the server seems to be dead. The new adress to reach me is modula2 at gmx.net.

02/26/2007
Mr Rick Sutcliffe published an updated version (2.32) of the Modula-2 FAQ (01/25/2007).

02/07/2007
FileIO_4_MOD32 is an implementation of the CocoR FileIO module for Canterbury Modula 2 (MOD32 - not Java!). Jean-Pierre Dezaire recently published this module at Modula2.org. A description from the projects page: "This is the implementation part of FileIO module for Canterbury Modula 2 (MOD32), a 32 bit compiler for OS2/ECom station. The definition part can be found in CocoR package (just browse the web)."

02/03/2007
A module to work with ANSI codes in text terminals and virtual consoles is available now from linux.aliboom.com. Visit the pages of Mr. Terry Ross to get more information or browse the definition module.

01/30/2007
Please visit the new community driven section of the Free Modula-2 Pages! Get in touch.

01/26/2007
Some patches to run XDS Modula-2/Oberon-2 (XDS-x86 and XDS-C) under FreeBSD (and I guess DragonFlyBSD) were published in a thread of Excelsiors forum.
Other news: Have a look at linux.aliboom.com. Some short articles on Modula-2 related stuff are available from there.

01/09/2007
Frank Schoonjans set up a page for a Modula-2 to Free Pascal translator written by Jean-Pierre Dezaire. The package contains binaries for OS2/EComStation and Windows platforms as well as example sources. The author points out that the program is not mature but usable.

01/02/2007
The new year begins with an update at linux.aliboom.com. New example programs are available as well as updated information on programming for Linux using Modula-2. The maintainer of the site also informs about an ongoing project to translate parts of Murus from German to English to make the Modules available to more people.

12/22/2006
GNU Modula-2 now builds as a cross compiler for the AVR microprocessor. An announcement containing download-links and more information was published by Gaius Mulley in the GNU Modula-2 mailing list. EDIT: This page briefly describes how GNU Modula-2 can be used to produce ATMega8 binaries.

12/13/2006
Gaius Mulley published an interesting paper giving some details on GNU Modula-2 and the progress the project makes. The paper was presented at the GCC Developers' Summit 2006 conference and is now available from the GNU Modula-2 homepage. Very informative stuff it is.

12/05/2006
Just found a new project at SourceForge.net: xds-gtk2 is a XDS Modula-2/Oberon-2 binding of GTK+. The project was activated a month ago and I am really eager to see the first files to appear there. UPDATE: Version 1.0 was released the day after I wrote the lines above.

12/02/2006
Topic: Editing source code. A beta of Proton is available since february. Version 3.3 PR 1 now comes with an integrated file manager and english language support. I used version 3.2 for a long time with Gardens Point Modula-2 to have a simple but elegant solution (You also need to download the syntax highlighting file; Just put the file in the subdirectory /syntax).
I also uploaded SynEdit 2.4 by Matthew Inman (MKI Design) to the local download-area as it seems to disappear silently from the net. As long as one does not edit very huge files on very old computers it's a nice editor coming with Modula-2 syntax highlighting on board. By the way: A list of editors with Modula-2 syntax highlighting is available.

11/09/2006
Just a pointer. These days I printed some parts of Svend Erik Knudsens doctoral thesis "Medos-2: A Modula-2 Oriented Operating System for the Personal Computer Lilith (1983)" which is available from ETH E-Collection, an important (and in my opinion great) "electronic publication platform for scientists of the ETH Zurich". As reading this highly recommended text got more and more interesting I updated my relevant section of the local FAQ. I hope we'll have a new Modula-2 based operating system one day...

11/04/2006
A link for people who are able to understand German text: An interesting thesis comparing available Modula-2 compilers by Mr. O. Gardi is available from the ETH RAMSES homepage mentioned below. The text is a bit dated (e.g. GNU Modula-2 0.43) but nevertheless interesting.
Other news: Some people found out XDS-x86 does not like 64 bit platforms and an updated GNU Modula-2 build is available from the download-area.

10/23/2006
The rewritten home of RAMSES (Research Aids for Modeling and Simulation of Environmental Systems) is now part of the Modula-2 Webring. "RAMSES is a generic modeling and simulation environment that allows you to solve a wide range of modeling and simulation problems easily. You can model and interactively solve non-linear differential equations, difference equations, and discrete event systems in any combination; size and complexity of your model is only limited by your computer's resources." Documentation is available. You will need Stonybrook (Windows), p1 (Mac OS X) or EPC Modula-2 to use RAMSES with other operating systems than classic MacOS (For the latter there is the free MacMETH Modula-2 which you can fetch from here).

10/16/2006
Latest details on the development of GNU Modula-2 can be found here. Update (10/19/2006): gm2-harness 0.96 was released today. There is a new option to exclude libraries from the building process. "This option might be useful, in the interim, when testing the gm2 and gcc-4.1.x combination, as it fails when building the Ulm libraries. So hopefully users could install a gm2 based on 4.1.x and test it with local projects."

09/28/2006
Again, news from the GNU Modula-2 Homepage: "gm2-harness 0.93 has been released which will download, patch and build gcc, gdb, gm2 with the SET and TYPE enhancements below. It also honours the --prefix=, --with-cvs, --with-gdb and --with-gcc= options."

09/12/2006
According to the GNU-Modula-2 Homepage gm2-harness-0.9 was released some time ago. Download the package which helps in downloading and building GNU Modula-2 from there.

08/10/2006
A new binary release of MOCKA (Karlsuhe Modula-2 Compiler) is available. "This is an updated version (2006-08-07) containing the missing $SYSDIR/M2RTS-ErrNo.o file in the sys subdirectory."

07/28/2006
A new version of the multi-language compiler Strannik is available since July 5th (floating point functions added).

07/17/2006
Relinking two interesting and often updated Modula-2 sites: First one is Murus which is an interesting collection of modules and programs which is often updated. Second is Jan Verhoevens Modula-2 Page which was also updated recently. Find there different programs and modules and the friendly founder of the Mocka and Modula-2 Mailing List.

07/06/2006
An updated binary build of the GNU Modula-2 Compiler is available from the download-area.

06/26/2006
Back from my holidays in Corsica I realised gm2-harness-0.8 is out as a reaction to the release of gdb-6.5. Download the package which helps in downloading and building GNU Modula-2 here.

06/10/2006
While I'm gone fishin' (I'll be back end of the month) you may want to have a look at LRgen 6.0. This is a commercial product by Parsetec. "LRgen is a Translator Writing System for building parsers, translators and compilers for computer languages. It's based on the powerful new TBNF grammar notation, a superset of EBNF." They offer a free download-version lacking the Modula-2 grammar included in the professional product.

05/31/2006
A new version of Mocka, the "MOdula Compiler KArlsruhe" is available. Apparently it is an updated version compiled on a recent Linux-system. The former page of the compiler is still online but marked as deprecated. A big thanks for the pointer to the new version goes out to Jan Verhoeven and the Mocka and Modula-2 Mailing List.

05/21/2006
While doing the usual search for Modula-2 related sites (which is done every 2-3 months) I found Mr. Kim Moser's site which contains some older Modula-2 sources (written for the Logitech compiler) in a subdirectory now published under the GPL.
Other news: A new version of the multi-language compiler Strannik is available since April 29th (bugfix-release).

05/18/2006
You may want to check the most recent threads of the GNU Modula-2 mailing list. The compiler will be built upon GCC-4.1 soon and so takes a big step in becoming part of the GCC main tree in the more or less near future.
German speaking people may be interested in two articles by Eckart Winkler published on the authors homepage.

05/03/2006
Thomas Breeden - developer of Aglet Modula-2 for the AmigaOS platform - published the Groupwise API in Modula-2 at developer.novell.com. Here's a short description from the page: "The GWObj and Adm API for Modula-2, and some higher-level support modules to make common GW programming tasks somewhat easier as well as provide example templates. A few complete example programs included."

04/30/2006
A kind visitor and user of the FST Modula-2 installer package told me there are problems with the package under Windows 2000. I don't really know what to do as I don't use this operating system and so cannot test the packag with it. This entry to the guestbook provides a possible solution.

04/27/2006
GNU Modula-2 0.51 is available now. Here's the announcement.

04/17/2006
The combination of Modula-2 and Linux may become more interesting for beginners. Mr. T. Ross has started a project which aims to deliver the examples in "Beginning Linux Programming" translated to Modula-2. All the Modula-2 related pages of the project maintainer got a facelift by the way.

04/02/2006
In our series of bringing attention to interesting Modula-2 related resources and projects... Christian Maurer continually improves and puts work into a collection of projects known as Murus. Sources are available for Linux (Mocka) and Dos (Fitted Soft Modula-2). The package is very useful for beginners using the Linux/Modula-2 combination as there are modules providing access to important system calls and a Mocka interface to X11. Please note: Most of the pages and sources of the projects are kept in German language.

03/23/2006
Roberto Aragon put up a page with the promoting title Modula-2 is alive. The new page basically contains binaries of GNU Modula-2 for the x86_64 architecture. There are two different versions of GM2+GDB for x86_64 which are different in size. Quoted from the homepage: "As part of the build, I developed a shell script as a wrapper to GM2, which provides access for making, compilling, debugging (with ddd or gdb) and browsing man and info pages of both gdb and gm2 that can be useful for novice users." The smaller package provided requires a 'bootstrapping' before using which can also be done by using the shell script. Earlier Mr. Aragon published some information on howto use Mocka with DDD and Kate.

03/09/2006 [edited 03/11/2006]
Today I want to bring some attention to the interesting Modula-2 pages of Mr. Terry Ross. He is working on a project to produce Manpages for the libraries of XDS Modula-2 and develops an IRC-bot for the Linux-distribution he supports and co-develops (SourceMage Linux). You may view and use the GPL-licensed sources of the bot. Let me add: These sources contain a lesson in all the difficulties you have to face when using C-libraries from Modula-2. And this is also the one and only Modula-2 example interfacing and using BSD-style sockets.
Other news: A new version of the multi-language compiler Strannik is available since February 23rd. Beside of other improvements there's a new class for using Tab-Controls. The Modula-2 dialect understood by the compiler is a bit strange - nevertheless it's an interesting project.

02/25/2006
M2Latex is available (again) from the download-area. Sounds good but it's not that easy. I found this package enclosed in some archived posts to comp.lang.modula2 - the reconstructed package was written for SunOS4 and does not compile on my Linux-box. While I am sure it's not that hard to rewrite the whole thing it may be interesting to have someone able to understand C look at the sources. My impression is that there are problems because of the differences between the language written and the language supported by GCC. Please help.
Other news: An updated GNU Modula-2 0.5 binary build is available (including GDB).

02/20/2006
GNU Modula-2 0.5 is out. It's not only there for testing but also to give you all the power of a complete PIM Modula-2 compiler coming with libraries. The homepage of the compiler has got a new adress now. Updated binary builds will follow soon - but not too soon.

02/11/2006
Version 0.5 of GNU Modula-2 seems to be ready to be released in the next few weeks according to the latest GNU Modula-2 Changelog.
Other news: While the Wrapl project does not produce a Modula-2 compiler but uses the XDS-package for essential parts I don't want to forget to mention the projects redesigned homepage. The author of this Icon-like language introduces some interesting ideas.

02/08/2006
The Amsterdam Compiler Kit is now available from its new Sourceforge project-page. While the package sometimes seemed a bit forgotten, it may gain some popularity through a cleaned build process and with the release of Minix 3 under a quite liberal license. The Amsterdam Compiler Kit also has frontends for C and Pascal and should compile on modern Linux systems. I haven't tried to build it but I plan to make the whole thing available as a Slackware package. The contained compiler is a PIM-style tool. If you are interested in testing Minix plus the ACK-M2 compiler without repartitioning your system just use Bochs and a disk-image from the same link. I tried this combination some time ago [Screenshot] and found out it works.
Other news: I updated the ApfelWiki Modula-2 page. This is a german Wiki for Apple Users. Please correct me (and others participating) there if necessary.

01/20/2006
The Q&D Tools by PhG (Thanks a lot!) are now offered from this page. This interesting package contains a lot of usable utilities for the DOS-commandline which are still usable under different Microsoft Windows operating systems. Some but not all sources (Topspeed Modula-2, PowerBasic, Visual Basic) are available. You may download the package from the local download-area (The package is mirrored here). The package is freeware, copyrights by PhG. Please read the enclosed license for details and have a look at all the other stuff that can be found in the archive.
I also updated some links but not all of the dead ones are found by now. Please note: I told you there's a mailing list for questions on Gardens Point Modula-2 some weeks ago. This one should not be used any longer. Please ask your questions via the Gardens Point Component Pascal Group.

01/16/2006
As some of you who followed the discussion may have anticipated the Sources of GNU Modula-2 have been moved to savannah.gnu.org. The gm2-harness package was updated to version 0.7 to reflect the migration to the new server (download here). Additionally the new version also makes it possible to specify the --prefix-option which gives you the power to install the freshly built GM2 to a directory of your choice. Read more by visiting the archives of the GM2 mailing-list.

01/11/2006
Here is the latest changelog of GNU Modula-2 (cleaned build process, availability of additional gcc-builtins and a lot of bugfixes).

01/01/2006
I wish all my visitors a happy new year. The first update for 2006 wants to bring some attention to WRAPL. This is a quite ambitious open source project which uses the XDS Modula-2 compiler. "Wrapl is a high level programming language designed to be compiled to bytecode for the Riva virtual machine. Wrapl is based on the Icon programming language and started out as an attempt to create a faster implementation of the Icon language. However, Wrapl was also intended to have some additional features and has gone through several major changes since its conception towards the end of 1999." Here's some documentation (pdf). You may be interested in the sources of the new version.
The "Programming Languages and Systems Group" at Queensland University of Technology (the makers of Gardens Point Modula-2) now offers an online GPM/CLR compiler. "With the online GPM/CLR compiler, you can compile Modula-2 programs online and download the resulting .NET executables." Very interesting in my opinion. Try it. Don't forget there's a mailing list for questions related to Gardens Point Modula-2.

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