The TRON Association is a research consortium of more than 100 mostly Japanese firms, including Fujitsu, Hitachi, Matsushita Electric, Nippon Telephone and Telegraph, NEC, Oki Electric, Toshiba, Intel Japan, IBM Japan, and Japan Texas Instruments. The TRON project began in 1984 to design a new computer and network architecture for the 1990s to support personal computer interconnection through a highly functional distributed system (HFDS). TRON is an acronym for “the real time operating system nucleus” that will be at the center of that architecture. The author outlines the history and objectives of the TRON project, which is based at the University of Tokyo. Next, he explores the idea that TRON standards could provide a framework for an open systems global computer network.

In the TRON project, devices, appliances, and machines that have embedded computer intelligence are called “intelligent objects.” In the future, these will include objects such as manufacturing machines, lighting, furniture, and even homes, or anything that a microprocessor can be used to monitor or control automatically. Within TRON, the personal computer is considered a “communication machine” with which ordinary people communicate with themselves, with other people, or with various intelligent objects. The idea is to interconnect all of these intelligent objects with a sophisticated computer network.

In order to achieve TRON’s open HFDS global networking objectives, four interrelated operating system specifications are being developed for the TRON project, as is a VLSI CPU specification for 32-bit and 64-bit microprocessor chip standards. The four operating systems are industrial TRON for embedded computer applications in intelligent objects, business TRON for communication machines to be used by humans, central TRON for mainframe computers and servers in networks, and macro TRON for controlling the computer network itself. Open systems architecture will be achieved by carefully and consistently standardizing interfaces between these operating systems.

This interesting and informative paper is presented in nontechnical language and provides insight into the organization, objectives, and ramifications of the TRON project. The TRON project is amazingly ambitious, seeking to restructure computing and networking architectures worldwide, but it must be taken seriously if only because of the high level of Japanese corporate support that it enjoys. This paper is helpful in understanding the research focus and potential corporate orientation of the Japanese in this global networking area.