15 Jul
2018
15 Jul
'18
5:02 p.m.
Hi,
I suppose this happens a lot with newcomers to HECnet, especially when there are long
periods of apparent silence. I'm currently reconciling remembering the '80s while
listening to (having read several times) Ready Player One audio book (incidentally, I
thought the recent film was... OK... but nothing like the book), playing around in VAX/VMS
on a 86x0 SIMH simulator and doing 'real world' work in .NET (C#) for a salary,
goggling in almost disbelief at the megabytes required to do what we used to be able to do
in kilobytes.
I have a vague recollection of TOPS-20 (possibly TOPS-10) so I built a SIMH environment.
I have a vague recollection of RSTS/E so... etc..
I have no recollection of RSX-11M but I tried.... and yeah, etc...
It seems it's VMS, VAX architecture (Alpha seems so new-fangled by comparison) for
me.
(I'm sooo glad Itanium is dying by the way - what an evolutionary dead-end - but what
do I know - 'Itanic' seemed prophetic)
Do any of you remember when UK Academia connected its universities together with X25 and
'coloured books' software? Yellow book was the transport, extending the addressing
beyond the 12 digit DTE address, so you ended up with 000010500401.FTP.MAIL for example,
to send Greybook mail via Bluebook FTP protocol. Redbook was to do with job transfer
(remote batch job entry and processing, reporting). Pinkbook (I kid you not) was X25 over
Ethernet.... And for a short while, I had set up X25 over Ethernet for DECnet between
departmental microVAXen to the university's VAXcluster.
Well, getting to the point, the 'coloured books' software on VMS was rather
monolithic so I began the task of splitting it up. First, I wrote a device driver to
create a pseudo-device to handle opening a Yellowbook connection. From then on, using the
queue/batch system for processing FTP requests etc.. I can remember it all but it seems so
pointless trying to recreate past 'glories'.
When (in university days) you share a vaxcluster with at least 40 concurrents students
EDTing then ALGOL68ing their programming assignments, it was fun to write a kind of
'TELL <userid> message' which mailbox'd a message to a central server
which worked out if they were on the local node or somewhere else in the cluster, passed
the message along and then broadcast it to the target user's logged in terminal.
Incidentally, I'm missing Algol68RS for VAX/VMS - not part of the hobbyist programme
possibly because it was never a DEC/Compaq/HP product)....
Though why neither Bliss32 (in which I wrote the above device driver and support for
Yellowbook) nor VaxLisp (don't ask why I would like this) are part of the hobbyist
programme, I have no idea.
So, what am I doing now? Apart from working in the real world, I'm resurrecting the
Star Trek game I wrote in Ada ('83) using SMG$ routines - a more or less realtime
version of the turns-based versions you see written in BASIC. Sad? Probably. I don't
care. I'm reliving some of my happiest times. I may retreat to VAX Pascal if it proves
too much.
I'd still like VAX/VMS Algol68RS, VAXLisp and Bliss32.... because, well, just
because.
Sorry
Keith
15 Jul
15 Jul
6:02 p.m.
From: Keith Halewood
Sent: Sunday, July 15, 2018 10:02 AM
To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE
Subject: [HECnet] Thrashing about...
When (in university days) you share a vaxcluster with
at least 40 concurrents students EDTing then ALGOL68ing their programming assignments, it
was fun to write a kind of ?TELL <userid> message? which mailbox?d >a >message
to a central server which worked out if they were on the local node or somewhere else in
the cluster, passed the message along and then broadcast it to the target user?s logged in
terminal.
This reminds me of a time in the 80s, when a string overflow bug in the PHONE utility
allowed users to broadcast arbitrary strings to other people?s terminal sessions,
addressing them by username.
It became quite popular at MegaBig engineering company where I was working at the time,
for sending one line messages. Unfortunately, the broadcast was anonymous, and so
pranksters started using it to insult people, and broadcast insulting messages to the
managers and executives.
It only took a little while to find the string overflow and patch it. However, it had
become so popular by then for short messages, that I had to write a replacement utility
that didn?t have the mischief potential that the original did. I had reported it to DEC
but didn?t get much of a response. I dunno when they finally fixed it ? it was present at
least from VMS 5.4 through 6.1.
--
Lee K. Gleason N5ZMR
Control-G Consultants
lee.gleason at comcast.net
6:50 p.m.
On Jul 15, 2018, at 8:02 AM, Keith Halewood
<Keith.Halewood at pitbulluk.org> wrote:
I?d still like VAX/VMS Algol68RS, VAXLisp and Bliss32?. because, well, just because.
You don?t need a Hobbyist License for Bliss-32 or Bliss-64, DEC released them on the
Freeware CD?s.
The hardest of the three to find will be Algol68RS, I?ve not seen any indication of it.
Zane
7:12 p.m.
Does ALGOL68 support call-by-name, like ALGOL60?
Hans
Verstuurd vanaf mijn iPhone
Op 15 jul. 2018 om 18:50 heeft Zane Healy <healyzh
at avanthar.com> het volgende geschreven:
On Jul 15, 2018, at 8:02 AM, Keith Halewood
<Keith.Halewood at pitbulluk.org> wrote:
I?d still like VAX/VMS Algol68RS, VAXLisp and Bliss32?. because, well, just because.
You don?t need a Hobbyist License for Bliss-32 or Bliss-64, DEC released them on the
Freeware CD?s.
The hardest of the three to find will be Algol68RS, I?ve not seen any indication of it.
Zane
10:54 p.m.
On Jul 15, 2018, at 1:12 PM, Hans Vlems <hvlems at
zonnet.nl> wrote:
Does ALGOL68 support call-by-name, like ALGOL60?
Not directly. But you can pass procedures as arguments (ALGOL 60 allows that, too), which
lets you achieve the effect of call by name.
Algol68-RS? That's not familiar. I don't remember Algol 68 from DEC. Could it
have been done by some university? "RS" doesn't suggest anything in
particular.
I know that CMU did an Algol 68 implementation, but that was for the PDP11. I once had
DECtapes with the run time library sources on it, but those have been lost. There was a
research group in the UK that was known for its Algol 68 work -- Royal Radar
Establishment, perhaps? And implementations were done for various machines in a number of
places, mostly in Europe. At least one (for the CDC 6000 series) was turned into a
company product.
paul
Hans
Verstuurd vanaf mijn iPhone
Op 15 jul. 2018 om 18:50 heeft Zane Healy <healyzh at avanthar.com> het volgende
geschreven:
>
>> On Jul 15, 2018, at 8:02 AM, Keith Halewood <Keith.Halewood at
pitbulluk.org> wrote:
>>
>> I?d still like VAX/VMS Algol68RS, VAXLisp and Bliss32?. because, well, just
because.
>
> You don?t need a Hobbyist License for Bliss-32 or Bliss-64, DEC released them on the
Freeware CD?s.
>
> The hardest of the three to find will be Algol68RS, I?ve not seen any indication of
it.
>
> Zane
>
>
>
>
11:35 p.m.
On Jul 15, 2018, at 1:54 PM, Paul Koning
<paulkoning at comcast.net> wrote:
Royal Signals and Radar Establishment (RSRE)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALGOL_68RS
I wonder if it?s available for Multics.
Also worth reading, and includes a section on Algol68-RS
http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/ALGOL/algol68impl/
Zane
On Jul 15, 2018, at 1:12 PM, Hans Vlems <hvlems at zonnet.nl> wrote:
Does ALGOL68 support call-by-name, like ALGOL60?
Not directly. But you can pass procedures as arguments (ALGOL 60 allows that, too),
which lets you achieve the effect of call by name.
Algol68-RS? That's not familiar. I don't remember Algol 68 from DEC. Could it
have been done by some university? "RS" doesn't suggest anything in
particular.
I know that CMU did an Algol 68 implementation, but that was for the PDP11. I once had
DECtapes with the run time library sources on it, but those have been lost. There was a
research group in the UK that was known for its Algol 68 work -- Royal Radar
Establishment, perhaps? And implementations were done for various machines in a number of
places, mostly in Europe. At least one (for the CDC 6000 series) was turned into a
company product.
paul 
16 Jul
16 Jul
12:43 a.m.
On Sun, Jul 15, 2018 at 4:54 PM, Paul Koning <paulkoning at comcast.net> wrote:
Algol68-RS? That's not familiar. I don't remember Algol 68 from DEC.
?I don't remember TLG doing Algol68. I'll should see Leslie or one the old
TLG managers next week at the weekly lunch and I'll ask.?
Could it have been done by some university?
"RS" doesn't suggest
anything in particular.
?RS -- I think means 'Royal Society' - the Brits did a couple of Algol68s
and I seems to remember one for the Vax kicking around, but I neer used it.
?
I know that CMU did an Algol 68 implementation, but that was for the
PDP11.
I believe that was Peter Hibbard's A68 compiler written BLISS-11 that he
started at Liverpool and finished at CMU. Generated code for Hydra and
UNIX (and maybe StarOS - I forget), although I think someone in Canada
moved it to RSX-11?. Problem was it compiled on the PDP-10, so it was
never self hosting because BLISS-11 required a PDP-10. I might have a v6
binary for it
?a tape somewhere. IIRC the binary I had ran on the 11/40e so would not
work on the 11/34 as it used the CMU csv/cret instructions.
?
?
4:22 p.m.
On Sun, Jul 15, 2018 at 6:43 PM, Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com> wrote:
On Sun, Jul 15, 2018 at 4:54 PM, Paul Koning <paulkoning at comcast.net>
wrote:
?I sent an email to the folks I still see and here are some replies:
?
Algol68-RS? That's not familiar. I don't remember Algol 68 from DEC.
?I don't remember TLG doing Algol68. I'll should see Leslie or one the
old TLG managers next week at the weekly lunch and I'll ask.?
From the manager of Technical Language Group @ DEC:
'No - ALGOL68 wasn't
on our list. In my pre-DEC life I worked on an
ALGOL-based compiler called
"PLUS" at what was then Sperry Univac...definitely not for the VAX!!!'
We were were discussing at lunch one day, I don't think DEC thought there
just was much of a market, particularly once Pascal showed up. From the
same discussion, one of the compiler implementors said (remember DEC
charged for its compilers so renumeration was an important factor when they
decided to build one - so it had to make money of they were to build it): "I
don?t recall any serious discussion of an internal DEC Algol compiler
project on the PDP-11, VAX or Alpha at DEC. To the best of my
recollection, the only serious users of Algol were British, and the
language is a pain in the neck to implement, with lots of performance
land-mines."
Clem
?
6:10 p.m.
IIRC there was a port of an early Burroughs Algol compiler for RT11.
Verstuurd vanaf mijn iPhone
Op 16 jul. 2018 om 16:22 heeft Clem Cole <clemc at
ccc.com> het volgende geschreven:
On Sun, Jul 15, 2018 at 6:43 PM, Clem Cole
<clemc at ccc.com> wrote:
?I sent an email to the
folks I still see and here are some replies:
?
From the manager of Technical Language Group @ DEC: 'No - ALGOL68 wasn't on our
list. In my pre-DEC life I worked on an ALGOL-based compiler called "PLUS" at
what was then Sperry Univac...definitely not for the VAX!!!'
We were were discussing at lunch one day, I don't think DEC thought there just was
much of a market, particularly once Pascal showed up. From the same discussion, one of the
compiler implementors said (remember DEC charged for its compilers so renumeration was an
important factor when they decided to build one - so it had to make money of they were to
build it): "I don?t recall any serious discussion of an internal DEC Algol compiler
project on the PDP-11, VAX or Alpha at DEC. To the best of my recollection, the only
serious users of Algol were British, and the language is a pain in the neck to implement,
with lots of performance land-mines."
Clem
? On Sun, Jul 15, 2018 at 4:54 PM, Paul Koning
<paulkoning at comcast.net> wrote:
Algol68-RS? That's not familiar. I don't remember Algol 68 from DEC.
?I don't remember TLG doing Algol68. I'll should see Leslie or one the old TLG
managers next week at the weekly lunch and I'll ask.?
6:50 p.m.
On Jul 16, 2018, at 12:10 PM, Hans Vlems <hvlems at
zonnet.nl> wrote:
IIRC there was a port of an early Burroughs Algol compiler for RT11.
Very loosely speaking. You're referring to DECUS ALGOL, by Barry Folsom and Greg
Hosler. It implements a language that resembles Burroughs Extended Algol, and the output
is a pseudo-machine binary that could be described as a 16-bit version of the Burroughs
mainframe instruction set. But I don't see any evidence that it was actually based on
any Burroughs code.
I have the RSTS port of that thing (by Terry Grieb and myself); I haven't found the RT
version, at least not the runtime library.
paul
7:03 p.m.
Paul
I used it on a pdp 11/40 running RT11 v5, the SJ monitor probably.
The reason I was interested was that the university ran a B7700 at the time.
Burroughs Algol is a superset of algol60 of course. It is still around on Unisys MCP
systems.
I still have a DECtape labeled ALGOL. No idea what?s on it though
Hans
Verstuurd vanaf mijn iPhone
Op 16 jul. 2018 om 18:50 heeft Paul Koning
<paulkoning at comcast.net> het volgende geschreven:
On Jul 16, 2018, at 12:10 PM, Hans Vlems
<hvlems at zonnet.nl> wrote:
IIRC there was a port of an early Burroughs Algol compiler for RT11.
Very loosely speaking. You're referring to DECUS ALGOL, by Barry Folsom and Greg
Hosler. It implements a language that resembles Burroughs Extended Algol, and the output
is a pseudo-machine binary that could be described as a 16-bit version of the Burroughs
mainframe instruction set. But I don't see any evidence that it was actually based on
any Burroughs code.
I have the RSTS port of that thing (by Terry Grieb and myself); I haven't found the
RT version, at least not the runtime library.
paul
6:19 p.m.
On Jul 16, 2018, at 10:22 AM, Clem Cole <clemc at
ccc.com> wrote:
...
We were were discussing at lunch one day, I don't think DEC thought there just was
much of a market, particularly once Pascal showed up. From the same discussion, one of the
compiler implementors said (remember DEC charged for its compilers so renumeration was an
important factor when they decided to build one - so it had to make money of they were to
build it): "I don?t recall any serious discussion of an internal DEC Algol compiler
project on the PDP-11, VAX or Alpha at DEC. To the best of my recollection, the only
serious users of Algol were British, and the language is a pain in the neck to implement,
with lots of performance land-mines."
Program managers have to estimate the business case for anything they do, and it's an
imperfect science. But still, those statements are not signs of careful analysis.
"Lots of performance land-mines"? Not so. Call by name is a simple function
call. Sure, if you use it when you don't need it your code slows down, but that's
no different from the performance hit you get in C++ if you put "virtual" on
functions that don't need it. In general ALGOL is no harder than PASCAL.
As for "only serious users" -- it's not clear to me whether that's being
said about ALGOL 68 or ALGOL 60. If 68, then maybe, though CDC found enough business for
it to sell the compiler (which was developed in Holland). If ALGOL 60, that's a
different thing entirely; it was widely used in Europe starting around 1962, and of course
it's also the implementation language of the Burroughs 5500 mainframe system. For
that matter, CDC, IBM, and probably others sold ALGOL 60 compilers.
paul
6:39 p.m.
I would have thought that ALGOL had a larger market share than APL which was available. On
the other hand, the charge for the special character ROMs might have tipped the decision
?
Dave
From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE <owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE> On Behalf Of Paul
Koning
Sent: Monday, July 16, 2018 12:19 PM
To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE
Subject: Re: [HECnet] Thrashing about...
On Jul 16, 2018, at 10:22 AM, Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com <mailto:clemc at
ccc.com> > wrote:
...
We were were discussing at lunch one day, I don't think DEC thought there just was
much of a market, particularly once Pascal showed up. >From the same discussion, one of
the compiler implementors said (remember DEC charged for its compilers so renumeration was
an important factor when they decided to build one - so it had to make money of they were
to build it): "I don?t recall any serious discussion of an internal DEC Algol
compiler project on the PDP-11, VAX or Alpha at DEC. To the best of my recollection, the
only serious users of Algol were British, and the language is a pain in the neck to
implement, with lots of performance land-mines."
Program managers have to estimate the business case for anything they do, and it's an
imperfect science. But still, those statements are not signs of careful analysis.
"Lots of performance land-mines"? Not so. Call by name is a simple function
call. Sure, if you use it when you don't need it your code slows down, but that's
no different from the performance hit you get in C++ if you put "virtual" on
functions that don't need it. In general ALGOL is no harder than PASCAL.
As for "only serious users" -- it's not clear to me whether that's being
said about ALGOL 68 or ALGOL 60. If 68, then maybe, though CDC found enough business for
it to sell the compiler (which was developed in Holland). If ALGOL 60, that's a
different thing entirely; it was widely used in Europe starting around 1962, and of course
it's also the implementation language of the Burroughs 5500 mainframe system. For
that matter, CDC, IBM, and probably others sold ALGOL 60 compilers.
paul
7:38 p.m.
On Mon, Jul 16, 2018 at 12:19 PM, Paul Koning <paulkoning at comcast.net>
wrote:
Program managers have to estimate the business case for anything they do,
and it's an imperfect science.
?....
In general ALGOL is no harder than PASCAL
?.
?I agree - Algol60 might have been fairly easy compared to some other
things, I suspect it was cost benefit, resources applied/ROI.?
? I'm not so sure of Algol?
?68. The impression I get from the languages folks is that Algol68 was
becoming just not that interesting to 'enough' customers (Paul W's comment
above about it being primarily just the Brits pushing DEC for it by then).
Also, Algol (Algol60 if you will) and Algol68 are pretty different in
scope. There were numerous Algol60 flavors for the -8 and -10, and as you
say; they are no harder than Pascal. [As I recently noted elsewhere, there
is slick multiuser Algol60 running on TSS/8 in 4K for simh/pdp-8].
The Pascal Report was created post Algol68 and in some ways was Wirth
simplification of -68 which had caused great consternation in the languages
community when the Algol-68 report was released. Pascal language
definitely had a fast following and DEC marketing picked up on that
invested and in it for the 32 and 36 bit systems [the 16 bit compiler was
from OMSI/Oregon Software, not our friends in ZKO]. I suspect, by the
time Pascal shows up DEC Marketing figured that the need for other
languages (like PL/1, RPG and Cobol) was more important than Algol68 and
the need for pure Algol60 was less and less for Vax since pretty much
anyone using Algol60 by then had transitioned to Pascal - so the cost
benefit/return favored Pascal and not Algol68. I personally can not say
(But .. I'll ask if any of them remembers though).
FWIW: The Stanford MainSAIL folks created a company did port the Stanford
AI flavor of Algol to the Vax for both VMS and UNIX, plus to different
68000/UNIX systems of the mid-1980s and they brought some of the Algol-ish
folks with them. I've seen that compiler kicking around the Internet also.
Again, as I said, it is a good question for that group what they remember.
?
?
10:36 p.m.
On 2018-07-16 19:38, Clem Cole wrote:
? ?Pascal
language definitely had a fast following and DEC marketing picked up on
that invested and in it for the 32 and 36 bit systems [the 16 bit
compiler was from OMSI/Oregon Software, not our friends in ZKO].
Uh. No... DEC had their own PDP-11 Pascal, different from the OMSI one.
I have both around here. I don't know who/where the PDP-11 Pascal was
DEC, at some point, stopped developing PDP-11 Pascal, though.
Speculation on my side, but I wonder if the OMSI Pascal was just so much
better than the DEC Pascal that DEC just decided to stop developing it.
Last version of PDP-11 Pascal is V1.3, released 1989. And it bears a
strong resemblance and compatibility with VMS Pascal, and is rather far
from OMSI. Not to mention there is not mention of anything related to
OMSI in any files, but copyright notices going back to 1981 from Digital
Equipment.
Johnny
--
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
10:53 p.m.
On Mon, Jul 16, 2018 at 4:36 PM, Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> wrote:
Last version of PDP-11 Pascal is V1.3, released 1989. And it bears a
strong resemblance and compatibility with VMS Pascal
?I believe you, I was not certainly not following it in those days, I'll
ask Leslie what the scoop was. I believe she was still managing TLG then,
if not she certainly knows who was.
As Paul K said, the other languages were not hard, but it was they had a
couple of issues, the big one being address space. The other was the
different runtimes, and that was expensive and then there was just the
tools. Paul W loves to tell the stories about moving the VMS linkers to
Ultrix to support the Fortran compiler. TLG had to cross compiled
(originally from the 10 then larger the Vax), but it was not the prettiest
development environment.
I always give Rich Grove and that team credit, with Gem, they had X
front-ends, and Y back ends, running Z different OSses, with architectures
from 16-64 bits and including parallel code generators. I still do not
know of a compiler suite that has lived as well.
To quote Rich, the Intel compilers, have the DEC Gem dna ground up and
slowly re-injected over the years. A number of us have wondered, if the
Gem had not been in BLISS, if Intel would have had the guts to keep them
and not stay with their own when those folks joined.
?
17 Jul
17 Jul
2:07 a.m.
On Jul 16, 2018, at 4:53 PM, Clem Cole <clemc at
ccc.com> wrote:
On Mon, Jul 16, 2018 at 4:36 PM, Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> wrote:
Last version of PDP-11 Pascal is V1.3, released 1989. And it bears a strong resemblance
and compatibility with VMS Pascal
?I believe you, I was not certainly not following it in those days, I'll ask Leslie
what the scoop was. I believe she was still managing TLG then, if not she certainly knows
who was.
As Paul K said, the other languages were not hard, but it was they had a couple of
issues, the big one being address space.
Address space? For most high level languages, addressing is abstracted so this
doesn't enter into the language at all. C is somewhat special here because it's
really a low level language pretending to be high level. But Algol, Pascal, and others
don't care at all how big your addresses are.
There was a comment that Pascal was taking over, that seems somewhat plausible. By the
mid 1970s Pascal was emerging and Algol 60 was the old thing. Algol 68 was quite capable
but not so easy to implement, partly because the specification was very rigorous and
therefore not so easy to understand.
I remember looking at the generated machine code from VMS Pascal V1.0. My impression was
that it was a CDC Pascal compiler, slightly tweaked to output VAX machine code.
"Slightly", because the code sequences looked exactly like what you'd expect
from a load/store machine like the CDC 6600, and not at all like what you'd use on a
machine whose arithmetic instructions can go directly to memory.
paul
16 Jul
16 Jul
9:04 p.m.
Op ma 16 jul. 2018 00:45 schreef Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com>:
On Sun, Jul 15, 2018 at 4:54 PM, Paul Koning <paulkoning at comcast.net wrote:
I do remember using Algol 68 at the University of Twente, circa 1985, on a
DEC2060 (TOPS10). I don't know the make or model. And on the Algol 60 note,
I have a set of papertapes for ROGALGOL for a PDP-8 (and some documentation
for it)
--
Alex.
?
Algol68-RS? That's not familiar. I don't remember Algol 68 from DEC.
10:49 p.m.
Algol68 was Betamax to Pascal and Ada?s VHS. The former was technically superior and the
other two just easier to deal with?. That?s how I feel anyway.
Algol68 had ?Mode? as a generalisation of type, encompassing value, reference (variables),
the triple reference. A truly liberal approach to ?pointers? able to point to locations on
the stack or on the heap with only the most natural restriction and garbage collection. I
really enjoyed the ability in Algol68 to slice and trim multi-dimensional arrays any way I
wanted? and the VAX/VMS compiler doing a pretty good job of handling the details in its
generated code. Who needed call by name when you could pass routine texts
(procedure/function bodies) as parameters to procedures and functions. No restrictions on
?function? results either. The RSRE compiler interfaced to VMS quite naturally ? the
CALLS/CALLG convention happened automatically and there were modifiers for call by
immediate value, STRUCTnCHAR modes for less liberal string handling possible in runtime
libraries. I/O (transput) formats were fun but there was no parallel processing ? I didn?t
really miss that anyway. The use of triple REFs?.. joyous.
And yes, Algol68 RS was the result of work at RSRE in Malvern. The compiler exists in one
form as a part of Ella and generates C source code. It?s not nice.
I have contacted Altran who apparently adopted the software output from RSRE. Attempts to
contact them have resulted in silence.
I?ll continue to try from time to time.
Keith
From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE [mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE] On Behalf Of Alex
van Denzel
Sent: 16 July 2018 20:05
To: hecnet at update.uu.se
Subject: Re: [HECnet] Thrashing about...
Op ma 16 jul. 2018 00:45 schreef Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com<mailto:clemc at
ccc.com>>:
On Sun, Jul 15, 2018 at 4:54 PM, Paul Koning <paulkoning at
comcast.net<mailto:paulkoning at comcast.net>> wrote:
Algol68-RS? That's not familiar. I don't remember Algol 68 from DEC.
I do remember using Algol 68 at the University of Twente, circa 1985, on a DEC2060
(TOPS10). I don't know the make or model. And on the Algol 60 note, I have a set of
papertapes for ROGALGOL for a PDP-8 (and some documentation for it)
--
Alex.
[https://mailfoogae.appspot.com/t?sender=aY2xlbWNAY2NjLmNvbQ%3D%3D&type=…
11:32 p.m.
I used Algol-68C on a DECSYSTEM-20 running TOPS-20 in the late 70s. In fact if anyone has
this i would love to know.
Regards
Rob
Sent from my Windows 10 phone
From: Alex van Denzel
Sent: 16 July 2018 12:05
To: hecnet at update.uu.se
Subject: Re: [HECnet] Thrashing about...
Op ma 16 jul. 2018 00:45 schreef Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com>:
On Sun, Jul 15, 2018 at 4:54 PM, Paul Koning <paulkoning at comcast.net> wrote:
Algol68-RS?? That's not familiar.? I don't remember Algol 68 from DEC.
I do remember using Algol 68 at the University of Twente, circa 1985, on a DEC2060
(TOPS10). I don't know the make or model. And on the Algol 60 note, I have a set of
papertapes for ROGALGOL for a PDP-8 (and some documentation for it)
--
Alex.
?
7:12 a.m.
No I don't think it does. I think the designers considered that to be a mistake in the
Algol 60 design.
Regards
Rob
On 15 July 2018 at 18:12 Hans Vlems <hvlems at
zonnet.nl> wrote:
Does ALGOL68 support call-by-name, like ALGOL60?
Hans
Verstuurd vanaf mijn iPhone
Op 15 jul. 2018 om 18:50 heeft Zane Healy < healyzh at avanthar.com mailto:healyzh
at avanthar.com > het volgende geschreven:
> >
>
> > > > On Jul 15, 2018, at 8:02 AM, Keith Halewood
< Keith.Halewood at pitbulluk.org mailto:Keith.Halewood at pitbulluk.org > wrote:
> >
> > I?d still like VAX/VMS Algol68RS, VAXLisp and Bliss32?. because,
well, just because.
> >
> > > >
> You don?t need a Hobbyist License for Bliss-32 or Bliss-64, DEC released
them on the Freeware CD?s.
>
> The hardest of the three to find will be Algol68RS, I?ve not seen any
indication of it.
>
> Zane
>
>
>
>
>
> >
17 Jul
17 Jul
6:24 a.m.
On Jul 15, 2018, at 8:02 AM, Keith Halewood
<Keith.Halewood at pitbulluk.org> wrote:
I?d still like VAX/VMS Algol68RS, VAXLisp and Bliss32?. because, well, just because.
While not VAX/VMS Algol68RS, have you seen this website?
http://algol68.sourceforge.net
Also, Algol-10 and AlgolW information can be found on my PDP-10 webpage, curtesy of Ronald
Tatum, many years ago.
http://www.avanthar.com/healyzh/decemulation/pdp10emu.html
<http://www.avanthar.com/healyzh/decemulation/pdp10emu.html>
Does anyone happen to know if the sourcecode for AlgolW exists?
Zane
10:32 a.m.
Zane,
I don?t know about the DEC AlgolW but I think the source for the IBM 360 AlgolW will be
somewhere in the MTS distribution tapes here:-
http://archive.michigan-terminal-system.org/documentation/mts-distributions
There is an AlgolW compiler that seems to work on the main distribution?
Dave
From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE <owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE> On Behalf Of Zane
Healy
Sent: 17 July 2018 05:25
To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE
Subject: Re: [HECnet] Thrashing about...
On Jul 15, 2018, at 8:02 AM, Keith Halewood <Keith.Halewood at pitbulluk.org
<mailto:Keith.Halewood at pitbulluk.org> > wrote:
I?d still like VAX/VMS Algol68RS, VAXLisp and Bliss32?. because, well, just because.
While not VAX/VMS Algol68RS, have you seen this website?
http://algol68.sourceforge.net
Also, Algol-10 and AlgolW information can be found on my PDP-10 webpage, curtesy of Ronald
Tatum, many years ago.
http://www.avanthar.com/healyzh/decemulation/pdp10emu.html
Does anyone happen to know if the sourcecode for AlgolW exists?
Zane
4:54 p.m.
On Tue, Jul 17, 2018 at 12:24 AM, Zane Healy <healyzh at avanthar.com> wrote:
Does anyone happen to know if the sourcecode for AlgolW exists?
I have at home ?Wirth's original version from Stanford which was written in
PL/360 that ran on TSS/360 and the like, (send me email off line if you are
interested) although I suspect you can find is also with a little poking on
archive.org. The Case-Western version for the PDP-10 (which I think may
have been incomplete) I don't know. I never saw it, nor what it was written
in; although I have seen various references to it on different PDP-10 web
pages. Google around, you might find it. I'd be interested in knowing
what the Case folks wrote it in. PL/360 was pretty arcane and definitely
IBM 360 specific, so the authors would have had to done a lot of work to
move to the 10 besides just a new backend.
A nice commentary about Algol-W can be found at: http://web.archive.org/
web/20160914215433/http://everything2.com/title/Algol%2520W
although that document does not mention TSS/360 which is where I ran it
years ago.
FWIW: There is an algolwtoc that exists which I also have. I played with a
little a few years ago. I was trying to decide for myself which was a
better first/teaching language, Algol-W or Pascal? (there is a case to
made for both). The author of the document I mentioned suggests that
Algol-W is better because it was simpler and had far fewer 'idiosyncrasies.'
?
?
18 Jul
18 Jul
6:42 a.m.
On Jul 17, 2018, at 7:54 AM, Clem Cole <clemc at
ccc.com> wrote:
On Tue, Jul 17, 2018 at 12:24 AM, Zane Healy <healyzh at avanthar.com
<mailto:healyzh at avanthar.com>> wrote:
Does anyone happen to know if the sourcecode for AlgolW exists?
I have at home ?Wirth's original version from Stanford which was written in PL/360
that ran on TSS/360 and the like, (send me email off line if you are interested) although
I suspect you can find is also with a little poking on archive.org
<http://archive.org/>. The Case-Western version for the PDP-10 (which I think may
have been incomplete) I don't know. I never saw it, nor what it was written in;
although I have seen various references to it on different PDP-10 web pages. Google
around, you might find it. I'd be interested in knowing what the Case folks wrote it
in. PL/360 was pretty arcane and definitely IBM 360 specific, so the authors would have
had to done a lot of work to move to the 10 besides just a new backend.
A nice commentary about Algol-W can be found at:
http://web.archive.org/web/20160914215433/http://everything2.com/title/Algo…
<http://web.archive.org/web/20160914215433/http://everything2.com/title/Algol%20W>
although that document does not mention TSS/360 which is where I ran it years ago.
FWIW: There is an algolwtoc that exists which I also have. I played with a little a few
years ago. I was trying to decide for myself which was a better first/teaching language,
Algol-W or Pascal? (there is a case to made for both). The author of the document I
mentioned suggests that Algol-W is better because it was simpler and had far fewer
'idiosyncrasies.?
Thanks for that everything2 link.
Eventually I might get Hercules back up and running. I?ve no real experience with IBM
mainframes though. My background was Harris and Honeywell, before moving to UNIX and
eventually DEC. The PDP-10 version, which is what I?m looking for is apparently
implemented in something called META2.
ftp://ftp.avanthar.com/pub/pdp10/algol/algolw.txt
<ftp://ftp.avanthar.com/pub/pdp10/algol/algolw.txt>
Here is the writeup on some of the background of AlgolW on the PDP-10.
http://www.avanthar.com/healyzh/decemulation/algol-w_story.html
<http://www.avanthar.com/healyzh/decemulation/algol-w_story.html>
Zane
17 Jul
17 Jul
9:25 p.m.
Yes I did see it. It was the starting point for trying to contact Altran. I also note that
the version of Algol68RS that is part of Ella (translating to C) does not include
formatted transput. In looking through some of the code generated, it seems not as
efficient managing the heap as the VMS version was.
Part of the request for the VMS version is because the runtime support was pretty good and
even the VMS debugger was ok with it.
If I have to implement anything myself, the danger is I?ll do something criminal like
start developing Algol68.NET ?
Keith
From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE [mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE] On Behalf Of Zane
Healy
Sent: 17 July 2018 05:25
To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE
Subject: Re: [HECnet] Thrashing about...
On Jul 15, 2018, at 8:02 AM, Keith Halewood <Keith.Halewood at
pitbulluk.org<mailto:Keith.Halewood at pitbulluk.org>> wrote:
I?d still like VAX/VMS Algol68RS, VAXLisp and Bliss32?. because, well, just because.
While not VAX/VMS Algol68RS, have you seen this website?
http://algol68.sourceforge.net
Also, Algol-10 and AlgolW information can be found on my PDP-10 webpage, curtesy of Ronald
Tatum, many years ago.
http://www.avanthar.com/healyzh/decemulation/pdp10emu.html
Does anyone happen to know if the sourcecode for AlgolW exists?
Zane
2117
days inactive
2120
days old
25 comments
11 participants
participants (11)
-
bqt＠softjar.se -
clemc＠ccc.com -
dave.g4ugm＠gmail.com -
denz＠hack42.nl -
dwe-6006＠philtest.org -
healyzh＠avanthar.com -
hvlems＠zonnet.nl -
Keith.Halewood＠pitbulluk.org -
lee.gleason＠comcast.net -
paulkoning＠comcast.net -
robert.jarratt＠ntlworld.com