Ceres (workstation)
| Developer | ETH Zurich |
|---|---|
| Manufacturer | ETH Zurich |
| Product family | Wirth |
| Type | workstation |
| Release date | 1987 |
| Discontinued | Yes |
| Media | Floppy disk: Ceres 1: 5.25 in (13.3 cm) Ceres 3: 3.5 in (8.9 cm) |
| Operating system | Oberon System |
| CPU | NS32000 |
| Memory | 2 MB DRAM + 256 KB video RAM |
| Dimensions | 18.5 in × 7.5 in × 14.5 in (47 cm × 19 cm × 37 cm) |
| Marketing target | Research |
| Predecessor | Lilith |
| Successor | Ceres-2, Ceres-3 |
The Ceres Workstation was a workstation computer built by Niklaus Wirth's group at ETH Zurich in 1987. The central processing unit (CPU) is a National Semiconductor NS32000, and the operating system, named Oberon System is written fully in the object-oriented programming language Oberon. It is an early example of an operating system using basic object-oriented principles and garbage collection on the system level and a document centered approach for the user interface (UI), as envisaged later with OpenDoc. Ceres was a follow-up project to the Lilith workstation, based on AMD bit slicing technology and the programming language Modula-2.
On the same hardware, Clemens Szyperski implemented as part of his Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) thesis an operating system named ETHOS, which takes full advantage of object-oriented technologies. A Usenet posting by Szyperski says that Oberon/F, which was later renamed to BlackBox Component Builder, incorporates ETHOS ideas and principles.