Trouble With ‘Tron’: A Computer Rivalry : U.S. Says Japanese Scientist’s Proposal for Open Operating System May Create a Trade Barrier

Ken Sakamura dreams of a future in which billions of compatible computers link together the world’s people, creating understanding and peace.

But the U.S. government says his new basic computer design, named Tron, may be an unfair trade barrier that restricts American access to the Japanese market.

Sakamura, a 37-year-old computer scientist at the University of Tokyo, says such charges are a misunderstanding.

“In the current climate of trade friction, anything new and Japanese is considered an economic threat by people in other countries,” he says. “It’s very sad because it overlooks how Tron can help all the people of the world both economically and culturally.”

Tron escaped being named as a major trade barrier in the U.S. Trade Representative’s recent report that focused on Japanese policy on imports of supercomputers, forestry products and satellites, but Tron remains a matter of concern to U.S. officials and computer firms.

Sakamura says he created Tron, a computer “architecture” or basic set of operating specifications, to make future computers more compatible and flexible, and has offered it free of charge to anyone.

With Tron, he says, computer operations would become as standardized as the controls in cars, giving anyone the ability to operate virtually any computer.

Tron, which stands for The Real-time Operating System Nucleus, also would allow future homes and offices to have dozens of computers linked together in a single network, while houses and communities could be connected into “intelligent cities,” he says.

In a Tron “intelligent house,” Sakamura says, if the volume of the stereo system is turned up, a miniature computer could notify another computer, which would close the windows to avoid disturbing the neighbors. That computer would then inform a microcomputer in the air conditioner, which would turn on to keep the temperature from rising.

Outside, computers could sense a child crossing the street and tell computers in oncoming cars to stop, he says.

Sakamura isn’t alone in his dream. In the past year, 126 computer-related companies, including 18 foreign firms, have joined the Tron Assn., which promotes his design. The list includes most of the world’s leading semiconductor makers.

Six Japanese manufacturers are currently developing advanced 32-bit Tron microprocessors, and the first full Tron computer is expected in 1991.

A Tron “intelligent house” currently under construction in Tokyo by a group of 16 companies is slated to contain 380 computers and be completed by the end of this year. The rice cooker, lights, telephones, baths, videocassette recorders, air conditioners, stereo equipment and a host of other appliances are tied together in a computer network for easy control.

A 12-story, $35-million Tron “intelligent building” planned in Tokyo will incorporate more than 10,000 interlinked microcomputers, developers say.

Dwarfing those projects is a computerized Tron “city” planned by 20 companies in Chiba prefecture outside of Tokyo. About 1,000 people are expected to live in the 250-acre area, expected to cost about $715 million to build.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, in its preliminary report on trade restrictions, said moves to adopt the Tron standard in Japan could hurt sales of U.S. computers and give Japanese companies an unfair advantage.

While Japanese makers have developed Tron products, “no U.S. manufacturer is in a position to sell Tron-based PCs (personal computers) or telecommunications equipment,” it said.

In recent negotiations in Japan, U.S. trade officials said they were particularly concerned that Japanese government procurements that specified the Tron standard would place U.S. companies at a disadvantage.

In January, Japan’s semi-private telecommunications giant, Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp., announced that it will use the Tron standard for its future digital communications network.

A committee formed by Japanese government, industry and local educational agencies also has set specifications for purchases of school computers which may give an advantage to Tron equipment, the U.S. trade report said.

But, says Sakamura, “Tron’s basic philosophy is openness, so anyone can use Tron specifications at no charge.”

Ironically, some analysts attribute Japanese companies’ enthusiasm for Tron in part to restrictions that U.S. semiconductor makers have placed on Japanese use of U.S.-developed computer microprocessors.

A U.S. electronics industry source says American officials also fear that Tron could replace U.S.-developed operating systems such as UNIX and MS-DOS, and thereby reduce U.S. leadership in the industry.

The industry source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said some U.S. companies might feel it was “too much of an imposition” to adjust to Tron.

Sakamura says all computer and software firms would benefit if Tron is widely adopted because their products could sell anywhere, including Japan, without modifications.

But he says Tron’s greatest contribution will be in allowing the people of the world to communicate more easily.

Tron provides for 48,400 multilingual characters as well as the direct transfer of images, while the current ASCII standard for transferring data between computers provides for only 128 Roman letters, numbers and symbols.

“Hopefully, a new world economic order will develop around this new culture and communication order, creating the foundation for cooperation and less fighting among peoples,” Sakamura says.

“That may sound like a dream. . . . However, I’m a computer architect, and the more I dream about the future, the better I can do my job of designing computer architecture for it.”