My Vintage Dream PC

[jmfbahciv]

You went personal first.

Nope. I lost patience.

I wanted to talk about OS architectures,

We did talk architectures. You simply refused to learn from us.

and
you claimed my ideas were worthless

I did not say that.

because you had more OS experience
than me.

I do. The only experience you've had is for systems that needed
an RT architecture. There were and are other kinds of usages
that systems do.

Which led me to want to quantify that experience. Since you have no
idea of the actual core size of a TOPS-10 OS, pretty basic stuff,

You still don't know what you're talking about. Any OS' size
depended on what kinds of gear and software the customer wanted
on his systems. Furthermore, a customer who had more than one
system ran monitors that were different sizes.

I
assume your experience was mostly user or admin level.

and you would be wrong.

Old timeshare OSs tended to be very, very reliable and they tended to
be, by modern standards, very, very small.

<snort> Define small.

/BAH

 

[Joe Pfeiffer]

Or it was a master's class assignment.

It doesn't make any more sense as an assignment. You have sophomores
hand-assemble a few lines to get the point across, and then move on.

 

[Joe Pfeiffer]

We just finished a successful programming project. It was successful
because we had one person programming, one person managing them and
checking everything they did. The programmers was very good,
generating only about 5 bugs a day on average, and the manager was
better.

In other words, it was successful because it was very small.

 

[Joe Pfeiffer]

One of my lecturers at University, Torgil Ekman
<http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torgil_Ekman>, as his Licenciate(*) thesis
wrote an Algol compiler for the computer at the university at the time,
SMIL <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMIL_(computer)> . This was in 1962.
There was never an assembler for this machine; he wrote the compiler in
machine code. The compiler itself was never written in Algol either, so it
could not be cross-compiled or -assembled.

Or, in any practical sense, modified.

Even in 1962, this just sounds insane to me. Once the first assembler
was developed (for whatever machine that was), there should never have
been another serious program written in raw machine code...

 

[Joe Makowiec]

ftp://jjlarkin.lmi.net/Auto.jpg

Is that a genuine, original edition HP-35 on your desk? I'm jealous. I
had an HP-45 back in the day, which unfortuantely bit the dust. Sitting
on my desk now is the (new) HP-35s, which is a good calculator, but
somehow just isn't the same.

 

[Patrick Scheible]

There is no *the* unix filesystem. There's no reason why *a* unix
filesystem couldn't be written to do this. I'd certainly like to see it
done.

There was "the" unix filesystem, before they proliferated. Even
though there are now several filesystems, as you say none has done
this. That's because of all the parts of the OS that would have to be
modified at the same time. File open calls and the shell would have
to be modified to open the latest generation of file by default, and
yet still be able to open an earlier generation when wanted, and to
delete the oldest generation depending on settings. File deletion the
same way.

-- Patrick

 

[Scott Lurndal]

Burrough's machines ran ALGOL, and never had an assembler. The Algol
compiler was written in Algol, and two guys hand-compiled the first
compiler directly to machine code.

Uh, one of the mainframe OS's that I helped to write was a Burroughs
Mainframe OS - it was not written in ALGOL, nor was there an ALGOL
compiler available for the system. There were assemblers available
(at least internally) for all the Burroughs boxes, and until MCPIX,
the assembler was shipped with the operating system. The COBOL68
compiler had an "ENTER SYMBOLIC" statement that allowed embedded
assembler.

Now, Burroughs had several lines of systems, and your statement above
does apply, in part, to the Large Systems (AKA A-Series, Clearpath)
derived from the B5000 system.

The Medium systems MCP was assembler until MCP/VS (circa 1985), when it was
rewritten in a high-level proprietary block structured language
called SPRITE, with portions in assembler.

Fine, as long as it never has bugs that corrupt the real database.

The best feature of SCCS, RCS and CVS is that the data base is just
a set of text files containing a set of changes. Easily editable
in an emergency and no proprietary binary format.

Then you've been lucky. And I guess careful.

See above. The fact that they're saved as plain old text makes portability
a snap. Having the source for the control system (all the above are
open source) only makes this easier.

scott

 

[Scott Lurndal]

There was "the" unix filesystem, before they proliferated. Even
though there are now several filesystems, as you say none has done
this. That's because of all the parts of the OS that would have to be
modified at the same time. File open calls and the shell would have
to be modified to open the latest generation of file by default, and
yet still be able to open an earlier generation when wanted, and to
delete the oldest generation depending on settings. File deletion the
same way.

There are several ways to do such a file system which is transparant to the
POSIX file access semantics.

The filesystem owns the directory, it can easily add entries for
for prior versions (even using the RSX-11/VMS ;N versioning scheme).

Alternatively, snapshot filesystems allow snapshots to be referenced
transparently.

Since the filesystem owns the 'leaf' name(s) after the mount point, it
can also add metadata after the filename (either with a marker character
such as # or by adding additional path name elements). For example,
a filesystem could support the following:

/mountpoint/file
/mountpoint/file/version=25
/mountpoint/file/version=25/mergeversion=36

etc.

scott

 

[Joe Pfeiffer]

There never *was* an assembler for this machine. The machine code was
simple enough that that was what people learned. Once the Algol compiler
was there, there was no further need for any intermediary language between
the two.

That's not what I meant -- when the first assembler was written for some
other machine, a cross-assembler or cross-compiler should have been used
to bootstrap the language processors for all later machines.

 

[Scott Lurndal]

That's not what I meant -- when the first assembler was written for some
other machine, a cross-assembler or cross-compiler should have been used
to bootstrap the language processors for all later machines.

Well, the earlier machine was a B300, and IIRC, they did use it for some
of the B5000 development internally. B300 was a descendent of the Electrodata
B205.

 

[Walter Bushell]

One of the basic, nostalgic, powerful smells from childhood. Like
burning selenium rectifiers.

John

There is that story of the woman who was completely against drinking
alcohol, but *loved* to run the ditto machine.

 

[Peter Flass]

Or, in any practical sense, modified.

Even in 1962, this just sounds insane to me. Once the first assembler
was developed (for whatever machine that was), there should never have
been another serious program written in raw machine code...

Or, if you really didn't want an assembler, why not code in Algol or
whatever and cross-compile?

 

[Rich Grise]

Ah, yes. The wonderful aroma of warm peanut butter.

Aromas? Can't beat fresh-baked bread, hot out of the oven.

Cheers!
Rich

 

[Roland Hutchinson]

It doesn't make any more sense as an assignment. You have sophomores
hand-assemble a few lines to get the point across, and then move on.

But cross-compile it using what?

If they didn't have an assembler, it's likely they didn't have a compiler
backend just lying around, either.

One might, however, hope that the "first compiler" referenced above wasn't a
compiler for the entire language. Anyone know?


--
Roland Hutchinson

He calls himself "the Garden State's leading violist da gamba,"
.... comparable to being ruler of an exceptionally small duchy.
--Newark (NJ) Star Ledger ( http://tinyurl.com/RolandIsNJ )

 

[krw]

Aromas? Can't beat fresh-baked bread, hot out of the oven.

The greatest invention since the microwave oven is the bread maker.

 

[ItsASecretDummy]

The greatest invention since the microwave oven is the bread maker.

I have a glass tube a little over a foot long, and about 5" in
diameter. It is Pyrex, and was sold in the early seventies as a bread
baking wonder. It was called "Pyrex Bake-A-Round", by Corning. It comes
with a wire rack to keep it in place in the oven, and on the counter top.

Still in Original Box. Mine is on my fridge. This one is some other
dude's.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Pyrex-Bake-A-Ro...be-&-Rack_W0QQitemZ230335017058QQcmdZViewItem

 

[ItsASecretDummy]

Not my childhood olifactory memory. We ate Wonder Bread.

John

Take two pieces of white bread, some PB and J, and put a tablespoon of
each in the center of the bread slice. Place other slice on top. Take a
plastic 16 Oz Tupperware glass, and pinch the two pieces of bread
together with it.

A mini PB and J samich without crust.

 

[Charles Richmond]

Or, in any practical sense, modified.

Even in 1962, this just sounds insane to me. Once the first assembler
was developed (for whatever machine that was), there should never have
been another serious program written in raw machine code...

I agree with Mr. Pfeiffer. If an assembler is developed, then *no* more
programming in machine code. But *when* was the assembler developed???

I knew an "auld fart" who took an early computer course at Michigan
State University in 1954. He was programming some incarnation of an
Illiac. In this early course, they programmed in *absolute* machine
code. He talked about adding several no-ops at the end of each loop, so
that more instructions could be added *without* changing the branch
address by simply replacing no-ops.

At that time for this machine, they used "KSNJFL" instead of "ABCDEF"
for the last six digits of hexidecimal. And so the "king size numbers
just for laughs" or "kind souls never josh fat ladies" mnemonics.

 

[krw]

I have a glass tube a little over a foot long, and about 5" in
diameter. It is Pyrex, and was sold in the early seventies as a bread
baking wonder. It was called "Pyrex Bake-A-Round", by Corning. It comes
with a wire rack to keep it in place in the oven, and on the counter top.

Still in Original Box. Mine is on my fridge. This one is some other
dude's.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Pyrex-Bake-A-Ro...be-&-Rack_W0QQitemZ230335017058QQcmdZViewItem

Doesn't make the dough and bake the bread while you're at work.

 

[Joe Pfeiffer]

I agree with Mr. Pfeiffer. If an assembler is developed, then *no*
more programming in machine code. But *when* was the assembler
developed???

Early 1950s. Granted, that's an assembler for a different computer.
But I just can't believe that when there were something like five (or
fewer) computers in the world, such a small community couldn't do favors
for each other.

I knew an "auld fart" who took an early computer course at Michigan
State University in 1954. He was programming some incarnation of an
Illiac. In this early course, they programmed in *absolute* machine
code. He talked about adding several no-ops at the end of each loop,
so that more instructions could be added *without* changing the branch
address by simply replacing no-ops.

At that time for this machine, they used "KSNJFL" instead of "ABCDEF"
for the last six digits of hexidecimal. And so the "king size numbers
just for laughs" or "kind souls never josh fat ladies" mnemonics.

And I'd have to look it up, but there was actually a reason why the
character encoding they were using made KSNJFL sensible. One could
argue that meant the encoding wasn't sensible....