Oberon System Interface

オベロン・システムの画面 / 1988– / Layout / Platform Screen Languages

The screen of the system Niklaus Wirth and Jürg Gutknecht built at ETH between 1986 and 1989. Windows never overlap: the display is split into vertical tracks and each track is tiled top to bottom. Any text anywhere on the screen can be run as a command if it reads M.P and you click it with the middle button, so the system needs no menu widget at all.

Oberon System Interface — Oberon-0 screen, tag lines and gapless tiled surface — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0 · © PeterEasthope — Oberon-0 screen, tag lines and gapless tiled surface — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · © PeterEasthope

Oberon System Interface — Oberon V4 screen, two-column tiling — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0 · © Joerg Straub — Oberon V4 screen, two-column tiling — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · © Joerg Straub

Oberon System Interface — Tablet running PC Native Oberon — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0 · © PeterEasthope — Tablet running PC Native Oberon — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · © PeterEasthope

At a glance

Visual cues

Nothing overlaps: the display is cut into vertical tracks first, then tiled top to bottom inside each track
A narrow track on the right holds a log above and a text of commands below, with the wide working track on the left
A one line title bar across the top of every viewer, carrying the document name and commands such as System.Close as plain text
One bit per pixel, black on white, with borders drawn as single lines and no shadow, rounding or grey

Best used for

Designing a workspace that gives up overlapping windows, where placement is decided by only two moves: which track, and where in that track
Giving a product a command list the user can rewrite, held as an ordinary editable text instead of a dedicated menu component

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Dictionary entry

Type: Set commands in the same face and size as body text. Name them M.P and spell them out as words, Copy and Rename rather than cp and rn.
Composition: Cut the display into vertical tracks and divide each track horizontally. Never overlap. Keep a narrow right hand track for the log and the command text and leave the left wide. Give every viewer a one line title bar.
Material: One bit, black on white. Single pixel rules, no shadow, no rounded corners, no greys and no colour. Mark the insertion point with a hook.
Caution: Copying the tiling without the rule that any text on screen is executable forces the menu bar and the buttons back in, and all that is left is a cramped layout.
Further study: chapter 4 of Project Oberon, on why free tiling and hierarchical tiling are compared and which was chosen / the contents of System.Tool, and what it means that the command list can be edited as plain text / how consistently the three button rules hold, left for the cursor position, middle for commands, right for selection

Related entries

Motif (モチーフ)Same Platform Screen Languages lineage.Compare Oberon System Interface and Motif
Terminal UI (ターミナルUI)Shared effects: Technique / Rebellion / Calm.Compare Oberon System Interface and Terminal UI

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