Re: My Vintage Dream PC
Kim Enkovaara
> I assume the VCS manages its own versions and builds. Or do you use
> another VCS to manage the configuration of this one?
In commercial VCSs there are releases, patches to them etc. No need
to handle that manually, I hope that the VCS is self hosted at its
manufacturer ;)
--Kim
John Larkin
<kim.en...@iki.fi> wrote:
>John Larkin wrote:
>> I assume the VCS manages its own versions and builds. Or do you use
>> another VCS to manage the configuration of this one?
>
>In commercial VCSs there are releases, patches to them etc.
And you trust your entire code base to this?
John
Joe Pfeiffer
Absolutely. Non-commercial VCSs do this, too.
John Larkin
Recursive insanity. No wonder we live in the Dark Ages of computing.
John
Joe Pfeiffer
> On Tue, 09 Jun 2009 09:01:08 -0600, Joe Pfeiffer
> <pfei...@cs.nmsu.edu> wrote:
>
>>John Larkin <jjla...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> writes:
>>
>>> On Tue, 09 Jun 2009 08:10:24 +0300, Kim Enkovaara
>>> <kim.en...@iki.fi> wrote:
>>>
>>>>John Larkin wrote:
>>>>> I assume the VCS manages its own versions and builds. Or do you use
>>>>> another VCS to manage the configuration of this one?
>>>>
>>>>In commercial VCSs there are releases, patches to them etc.
>>>
>>> And you trust your entire code base to this?
>>
>>Absolutely. Non-commercial VCSs do this, too.
>
> Recursive insanity. No wonder we live in the Dark Ages of computing.
Just a matter of using the computer to do the things it does better than
people (ie, bookkeeping)
John Larkin
<pfei...@cs.nmsu.edu> wrote:
>John Larkin <jjla...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> writes:
>
>> On Tue, 09 Jun 2009 09:01:08 -0600, Joe Pfeiffer
>> <pfei...@cs.nmsu.edu> wrote:
>>
>>>John Larkin <jjla...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> writes:
>>>
>>>> On Tue, 09 Jun 2009 08:10:24 +0300, Kim Enkovaara
>>>> <kim.en...@iki.fi> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>John Larkin wrote:
>>>>>> I assume the VCS manages its own versions and builds. Or do you use
>>>>>> another VCS to manage the configuration of this one?
>>>>>
>>>>>In commercial VCSs there are releases, patches to them etc.
>>>>
>>>> And you trust your entire code base to this?
>>>
>>>Absolutely. Non-commercial VCSs do this, too.
>>
>> Recursive insanity. No wonder we live in the Dark Ages of computing.
>
>Just a matter of using the computer to do the things it does better than
>people (ie, bookkeeping)
It's more like wanting a computer to automate things that the
programmers don't want to be bothered with (ie, discipline and
responsibility.)
John
Scott Lurndal
>On Tue, 09 Jun 2009 09:01:08 -0600, Joe Pfeiffer
><pfei...@cs.nmsu.edu> wrote:
>
>>John Larkin <jjla...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> writes:
>>
>>> On Tue, 09 Jun 2009 08:10:24 +0300, Kim Enkovaara
>>> <kim.en...@iki.fi> wrote:
>>>
>>>>John Larkin wrote:
>>>>> I assume the VCS manages its own versions and builds. Or do you use
>>>>> another VCS to manage the configuration of this one?
>>>>
>>>>In commercial VCSs there are releases, patches to them etc.
>>>
>>> And you trust your entire code base to this?
>>
>>Absolutely. Non-commercial VCSs do this, too.
>
>
>Recursive insanity. No wonder we live in the Dark Ages of computing.
>
You do know that the C compiler is actually written in C, don't you?
Why shouldn't a version control system be used to manage itself,
once it is past the bootstrap stage?
I'd have no problem using CVS to host the CVS source base (although
many may prefer SVN instead).
I've code from the 80's still under RCS/CVS control and have no problem
accessing it twenty years later.
scott
Archimedes' Lever
I think it is you that is stuck in a recursive loop of not knowing how
things are done outside your little JohnnyWorld.
Rich Grise
> John Larkin <jjla...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> writes:
>> On Tue, 09 Jun 2009 09:01:08 -0600, Joe Pfeiffer
>>>> On Tue, 09 Jun 2009 08:10:24 +0300, Kim Enkovaara
>>>>>> I assume the VCS manages its own versions and builds. Or do you use
>>>>>> another VCS to manage the configuration of this one?
>>>>>
>>>>>In commercial VCSs there are releases, patches to them etc.
>>>>
>>>> And you trust your entire code base to this?
>>>
>>>Absolutely. Non-commercial VCSs do this, too.
>>
>> Recursive insanity. No wonder we live in the Dark Ages of computing.
>
> Just a matter of using the computer to do the things it does better than
> people (ie, bookkeeping)
If you can't do it on paper[1], you can't do it on a computer! ;-)
Cheers!
Rich
[1] given an arbitrary amount of time, of course. :-)
Rich Grise
> On Tue, 09 Jun 2009 12:53:35 -0600, Joe Pfeiffer
>>
>>people (ie, bookkeeping)
>
> It's more like wanting a computer to automate things that the
> programmers don't want to be bothered with (ie, discipline and
> responsibility.)
>
"Discipline, comrades, iron discipline!"
-- George Orwell, "Animal Farm"
Or, "Who's responsible for this disaster?"
-- Almost Everybody
Cheers!
Rich
John Larkin
Show us some code that you've written.
Excel sheets don't count.
John
Archimedes' Lever
You should learn some of the things Einstein stated.
Don't clutter your mind, Johnny.
Archimedes' Lever
<jjla...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
>> I think it is you that is stuck in a recursive loop of not knowing how
>>things are done outside your little JohnnyWorld.
>
>Show us some code that you've written.
>
>Excel sheets don't count.
>
>John
This is not about code segments, Johnny. It is about computing and
programming paradigms.
John Larkin
wrote:
>John Larkin <jjla...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> writes:
>>On Tue, 09 Jun 2009 09:01:08 -0600, Joe Pfeiffer
>><pfei...@cs.nmsu.edu> wrote:
>>
>>>John Larkin <jjla...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> writes:
>>>
>>>> On Tue, 09 Jun 2009 08:10:24 +0300, Kim Enkovaara
>>>> <kim.en...@iki.fi> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>John Larkin wrote:
>>>>>> I assume the VCS manages its own versions and builds. Or do you use
>>>>>> another VCS to manage the configuration of this one?
>>>>>
>>>>>In commercial VCSs there are releases, patches to them etc.
>>>>
>>>> And you trust your entire code base to this?
>>>
>>>Absolutely. Non-commercial VCSs do this, too.
>>
>>
>>Recursive insanity. No wonder we live in the Dark Ages of computing.
>>
>
>You do know that the C compiler is actually written in C, don't you?
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.
>
>Why shouldn't a version control system be used to manage itself,
>once it is past the bootstrap stage?
Fine, as long as it never has bugs that corrupt the real database.
>
>I'd have no problem using CVS to host the CVS source base (although
>many may prefer SVN instead).
>
>I've code from the 80's still under RCS/CVS control and have no problem
>accessing it twenty years later.
Then you've been lucky. And I guess careful.
John
John Larkin
Ooh, you know big words like "paradigm."
Show us some code.
John
Joe Pfeiffer
> On 09 Jun 2009 21:27:02 GMT, sc...@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal)
> wrote:
>>
>>You do know that the C compiler is actually written in C, don't you?
>
> 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.
WHY? Why on earth didn't they write the first version as a
cross-compiler? Hand-compiling a compiler to machine code seems like
one of the most amazingly inefficient exercises in mascochism I've ever
heard of.
>>
>>Why shouldn't a version control system be used to manage itself,
>>once it is past the bootstrap stage?
>
> Fine, as long as it never has bugs that corrupt the real database.
>
>>
>>I'd have no problem using CVS to host the CVS source base (although
>>many may prefer SVN instead).
>>
>>I've code from the 80's still under RCS/CVS control and have no problem
>>accessing it twenty years later.
>
> Then you've been lucky. And I guess careful.
Using a VCS is one of the most elementary ways of being careful.
John Larkin
<pfei...@cs.nmsu.edu> wrote:
>John Larkin <jjla...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> writes:
>> On 09 Jun 2009 21:27:02 GMT, sc...@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal)
>> wrote:
>>>
>>>You do know that the C compiler is actually written in C, don't you?
>>
>> 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.
>
>WHY? Why on earth didn't they write the first version as a
>cross-compiler? Hand-compiling a compiler to machine code seems like
>one of the most amazingly inefficient exercises in mascochism I've ever
>heard of.
Don't know. Maybe they didn't have a computer.
John
ItsASecretDummy
wrote:
>WHY? Why on earth didn't they write the first version as a
>cross-compiler? Hand-compiling a compiler to machine code seems like
>one of the most amazingly inefficient exercises in mascochism I've ever
>heard of.
Burroughs Computer Systems was the first Mainframe I ever saw as a
field trip in high school vocational electronics course. That was back
when a 15 foot long dot matrix printout of Santa and His Reindeer was a
really big deal to them as they had it proudly displayed for us.
Turns out that over ten years later, it was the first mainframe
computer I worked with in an employment setting as well. Pretty
cool.They were talking about porting its MRP system to a 386, which had
just hit the scene. I was doing Lotus spreadsheets, and laying out PCBs
in 4X and via AUTOCAD v2 on a 286 onto mylar on a pen plotter, then to a
reduction camera, which we also had in house.
Ahh... the days of sepias and blueprints that really were blue.
John Larkin
I still draw my schematics on vellum, and the blueprints are still
blue.
John
William Hamblen
<jjla...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
>I still draw my schematics on vellum, and the blueprints are still
>blue.
Ink on linen 30 years ago. Maps of municipal water mains.
Bud
Joe Pfeiffer
>
> I still draw my schematics on vellum, and the blueprints are still
> blue.
You have got to be joking. Doing real live blueprints today makes as
much sense as if I put out my assignments on ditto.
ItsASecretDummy
I figured the delirium was due to something. Vapor phase degreaser
fumes and Ammonia fumes. Bwuahahahahahaha! You can take a joke, right?
You, the one that said I haven't been doing this for a living?
You deserve far less credence than I give you for that.
Peter Flass
I'm getting an education on the perils of developing a compiler in
itself now. I don't want to use a new feature until I have a couple of
good versions, in case I have to go back to use an old version to
re-compile something. Also, a minor change can introduce bugs in
seemingly unrelated code. For a full rebuild I re-compile the thing
three times to make sure there isn't some bug that doesn't show itself
until I compile something compiled by a module that has the bug in it's
generated code. Then there's the runtime library...
(pruned to A.F.C)
jmfbahciv
Or it was a master's class assignment.
/BAH
Christian Brunschen
Joe Pfeiffer <pfei...@cs.nmsu.edu> wrote:
>John Larkin <jjla...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> writes:
>> On 09 Jun 2009 21:27:02 GMT, sc...@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal)
>> wrote:
>>>
>>>You do know that the C compiler is actually written in C, don't you?
>>
>> 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.
>
>WHY? Why on earth didn't they write the first version as a
>cross-compiler? Hand-compiling a compiler to machine code seems like
>one of the most amazingly inefficient exercises in mascochism I've ever
>heard of.
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.
(*) Licenciate is a post-graduate degree available in Sweden, halfway
between Master and Doctor.
Best wishes,
// Christian Brunschen
Joe Pfeiffer
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
>
> 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...
John Larkin
I'm not joking.
ftp://jjlarkin.lmi.net/RainyDay.jpg
I think better on a piece of big paper than I do on a tiny screen. I
keep the originals forever, with side notes, node voltages, graphs of
expected behavior, flow charts... basically documenting design intent.
And I can draw anything without having to stop and create a library
part first. I do this for hardware and software and mechanical
designs.
ftp://jjlarkin.lmi.net/Auto.jpg
After I do a design, I make a blueprint and give it to my one of my
cad kids to enter in Pads or Solidworks or VHDL or whatever, and grind
out the details.
Lately I've also been writing on whiteboards and taking photos, for
things like figures in proposals. The customers are amused...
sometimes the frame and pen trays show.
"My assignments"? Are you a teacher? Of what?
John
Christian Brunschen
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.
Dave Garland
> Doing real live blueprints today makes as
> much sense as if I put out my assignments on ditto.
But ditto smells so good.
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.
--
Joe Makowiec
http://makowiec.org/
Email: http://makowiec.org/contact/?Joe
Usenet Improvement Project: http://improve-usenet.org/
John Larkin
One of the basic, nostalgic, powerful smells from childhood. Like
burning selenium rectifiers.
John
John Larkin
Back in those days, you couldn't just go to Best Buy and pick up a
Dell to cross-compile on. Machine programming was common and HLLs were
novel. Machine coding was an essential step in the bootstrap process.
One might initially hand-code a stripped subset of a compiler so that
you could then pass successive versions through themselves. If that
took a man-month, no big deal. Even renting an IBM machine could cost
$20K a month.
John
Scott Lurndal
>On 09 Jun 2009 21:27:02 GMT, sc...@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal)
>wrote:
>
>>John Larkin <jjla...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> writes:
>>>On Tue, 09 Jun 2009 09:01:08 -0600, Joe Pfeiffer
>>><pfei...@cs.nmsu.edu> wrote:
>>>
>>>>John Larkin <jjla...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> writes:
>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, 09 Jun 2009 08:10:24 +0300, Kim Enkovaara
>>>>> <kim.en...@iki.fi> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>John Larkin wrote:
>>>>>>> I assume the VCS manages its own versions and builds. Or do you use
>>>>>>> another VCS to manage the configuration of this one?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>In commercial VCSs there are releases, patches to them etc.
>>>>>
>>>>> And you trust your entire code base to this?
>>>>
>>>>Absolutely. Non-commercial VCSs do this, too.
>>>
>>>
>>>Recursive insanity. No wonder we live in the Dark Ages of computing.
>>>
>>
>>You do know that the C compiler is actually written in C, don't you?
>
>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.
>
>>
>>Why shouldn't a version control system be used to manage itself,
>>once it is past the bootstrap stage?
>
>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.
>>
>>I'd have no problem using CVS to host the CVS source base (although
>>many may prefer SVN instead).
>>
>>I've code from the 80's still under RCS/CVS control and have no problem
>>accessing it twenty years later.
>
>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
Lawrence Statton
> 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.
You know what I miss? Real scientific desk calculators. You just can't beat the ergonomics of a "real keyboard" (think HP-46). Yeah, I know you can get feature-accurate simulacra of calculators for your computer, but the work-flow just isn't the same. *sigh*
--L
Mensanator
<jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 10 Jun 2009 10:38:36 -0500, Dave Garland
>
> >Joe Pfeiffer wrote:
>
> >> Doing real live blueprints today makes as
> >> much sense as if I put out my assignments on ditto.
>
> >But ditto smells so good.
>
> One of the basic, nostalgic, powerful smells from childhood. Like
> burning selenium rectifiers.
Or ants.
>
> John
Joe Pfeiffer
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.
Joe Pfeiffer
You can buy a pretty impressive scientific calculator today at
Wal-Mart...
Lawrence Statton
> You can buy a pretty impressive scientific calculator today at
> Wal-Mart...
Really? All I've ever seen are tiny shirt-pocket sized things with
chiclet keyboards and 3mm high LCD digits.
--L
Joe Pfeiffer
Now I'm wondering what you mean by a scientific calculator...
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=10248067
Scott Lurndal
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.
Lawrence Statton
Quoting myself:
>> You know what I miss? Real scientific desk calculators. You just
>> can't beat the ergonomics of a "real keyboard" (think HP-46).
> Now I'm wondering what you mean by a scientific calculator...
You left out the critically important word "desk".
http://www.hpmuseum.org/46_81/46m.jpg
> http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=10248067
Keys are way too small - near impossible to operate with any speed and
the calculator weighs so little that you can't operate it one-handed
without it sliding around the desk.
Walter Bushell
Lawrence Statton <yankee...@gmail.com> wrote:
More of less any laptop can support a scientific calculator program, and
if you want more a desktop machine will serve nicely.
Walter Bushell
John Larkin <jjla...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
There is that story of the woman who was completely against drinking
alcohol, but *loved* to run the ditto machine.
Joe Pfeiffer
Ah, you are correct. I never used a scientific desk calculator.
Peter Flass
Or, if you really didn't want an assembler, why not code in Algol or
whatever and cross-compile?
Roland Hutchinson
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 )
John Larkin
<mako...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>On 10 Jun 2009 in alt.folklore.computers, John Larkin wrote:
>
>> 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.
Yup, and it still works. I bought that one for about $400 just after
it came out. I found a bunch more in a box at Los Alamos Sales, but
only a couple still work. I prefer it to any of the later HP calcs...
the stuff you really need, like pi and x^y and things, are in plain
sight.
I also have a few desktop 9100's that I'd love to get working again.
That was an awesome machine.
I've been meaning to try the new 35, for carrying around. At least RPN
isn't totally dead.
John
John Larkin
Charles Richmond
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.
--
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
| Charles and Francis Richmond richmond at plano dot net |
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
Charles Richmond
In a "junior college" I attended, they had an Olivetti programmable desk
calculator that was programmed using regular 80-column computer cards. I
wish that I remembered the model... It programmed in a language similar
to FORTRAN. I remember a program created by the entire class that solved
quadratic equations. (Remember, we were all neophytes back then...)
Joe Pfeiffer
> Joe Pfeiffer wrote:
>> c...@mer.df.lth.se (Christian Brunschen) writes:
>>> 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...
>
> 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....
JosephKK
Is it possible to purchase so many as 3 "dead" 35s (or 9100s) from
you?
JosephKK
But i never liked the smell of the diazo process running.
Kim Enkovaara
> On Tue, 09 Jun 2009 08:10:24 +0300, Kim Enkovaara
> <kim.en...@iki.fi> wrote:
>
>> John Larkin wrote:
>>> I assume the VCS manages its own versions and builds. Or do you use
>>> another VCS to manage the configuration of this one?
>> In commercial VCSs there are releases, patches to them etc.
>
> And you trust your entire code base to this?
And you trust your filesystem, operating system, backup media,
manual operations for release versioning etc. How do you know
that 5 year old release file xyz is not corrupted? In VCS systems
metadata usually contains crc or hash of the version, and the
database integrity can be checked. Do you have manual pictures
of the relationships of the code, or is it so simple that it is
in one linear progression, which is not normal.
At least in VCS systems usually mere mortals can't delete any
versions at any time. In that way a user can not do any real damage.
And of course those systems are also backed up, maybe replicated
for hot switch-overs if the system is not healthy etc.
This is not rocket science, VCS systems have been in use for a long
time and for a reason.
--Kim
JosephKK
>c...@mer.df.lth.se (Christian Brunschen) writes:
>>
>> 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...
I have worked with plenty of machines with no ROM whatsoever. You had
punch in by hand the most trivial tools, then use that to add a
loader, maybe 50 words or so (of 150 to 200 bytes on a byte oriented
machine). Then, on the machines i used, a paper tape could load any
useful program. Once you had some ROM to work with booting/IPL got
much easier.
Kim Enkovaara
> You can buy a pretty impressive scientific calculator today at
> Wal-Mart...
Does it have RPN and lasts hard use for decades ;) I'm happy user
of HP-28S, the only problem is sometimes to find the LR1 batteries.
--Kim
Peter Flass
I can't exactly recall that PDP-11 video on U-Tube. Didn't they have to
toggle in the initial bootstrap in order to load the paper tapes?
jmfbahciv
> jmfbahciv <jmfbahciv@aol> writes:
>
>>> On Tue, 09 Jun 2009 20:44:54 -0600, Joe Pfeiffer
>>> <pfei...@cs.nmsu.edu> wrote:
>>>
>>>> John Larkin <jjla...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> writes:
>>>>> On 09 Jun 2009 21:27:02 GMT, sc...@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal)
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>> You do know that the C compiler is actually written in C, don't you?
>>>>> 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.
>>>> WHY? Why on earth didn't they write the first version as a
>>>> cross-compiler? Hand-compiling a compiler to machine code seems like
>>>> one of the most amazingly inefficient exercises in mascochism I've ever
>>>> heard of.
>>> Don't know. Maybe they didn't have a computer.
>>>
>> 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.
The university I went to had a grad level course which consisted of
writing a compiler. There were no classes.
/BAH
jmfbahciv
> Joe Pfeiffer wrote:
>
>> Doing real live blueprints today makes as
>> much sense as if I put out my assignments on ditto.
>
> But ditto smells so good.
<grin> I once had a secretary who would condemn anybody
who drank beer but would figure out how to spend an hour
making ditto copies.
/BAH
Joe Pfeiffer
>
> The university I went to had a grad level course which consisted of
> writing a compiler. There were no classes.
Most CS departments have an undergrad class in compiler writing, in
which the term project is to write (for a toy language, of course).
They don't write it in machine code!
Scott Lurndal
>Charles Richmond <fri...@tx.rr.com> writes:
>
>> Joe Pfeiffer wrote:
>>> c...@mer.df.lth.se (Christian Brunschen) writes:
>>>> 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...
>>
>> 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 suspect getting time on one of those 5 computers would be like
getting observation time on the hubble.
I should ask around the MV plant and see if there's anyone left that
remembers.
scott
John Larkin
<kim.en...@iki.fi> wrote:
>John Larkin wrote:
>> On Tue, 09 Jun 2009 08:10:24 +0300, Kim Enkovaara
>> <kim.en...@iki.fi> wrote:
>>
>>> John Larkin wrote:
>>>> I assume the VCS manages its own versions and builds. Or do you use
>>>> another VCS to manage the configuration of this one?
>>> In commercial VCSs there are releases, patches to them etc.
>>
>> And you trust your entire code base to this?
>
>And you trust your filesystem, operating system, backup media,
>manual operations for release versioning etc.
We release versions as engineering documents, with a document number
and a rev letter. The entire package is released as a unit, everything
needed to build it, with directions. It's formally released to the
company library server, and weekly zero-based DVD backups are stored
in several off-site locations. It would literally take two nucleasr
strikes to lose it.
How do you know
>that 5 year old release file xyz is not corrupted?
I occasionally check an old weekly backup. No errors so far.
In VCS systems
>metadata usually contains crc or hash of the version, and the
>database integrity can be checked. Do you have manual pictures
>of the relationships of the code, or is it so simple that it is
>in one linear progression, which is not normal.
There's documantation about the project and all the tools. Tools are
archived, too. There's a GO.BAT file that completely rebuilds
everything from sources.
Some of my guys use VCS software, but we still require a standalone
release package, and that the next rev be based on the current one.
VCS becomes like a text editor, something that's a temporary working
tool, not an official repository.
>
>At least in VCS systems usually mere mortals can't delete any
>versions at any time. In that way a user can not do any real damage.
>And of course those systems are also backed up, maybe replicated
>for hot switch-overs if the system is not healthy etc.
>
>This is not rocket science, VCS systems have been in use for a long
>time and for a reason.
Just make sure the files are intact and that the VCS itself will be
runnable in the long term. *IF* you have a long term, and don't job
hop every few years, in which case none of this matters.
John
John Larkin
I don't think I could bear to part with any of them. Well, maybe a
dead '35. I want to fix the 9100s some day. Unfortunately, HP never
released the schematics for some bizarre reason. The HP historian has
a trove of documentation on the 9100 that they won't release, so 9100s
are going into dumpsters.
John
Patrick Scheible
Sigh.
-- Patrick
VWWall
> On Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:52:30 +0000 (UTC), Joe Makowiec
> <mako...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>
>> On 10 Jun 2009 in alt.folklore.computers, John Larkin wrote:
>>
>>> 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.
>
batteries, and there is an open in the charger circuit.
> Yup, and it still works. I bought that one for about $400 just after
> it came out. I found a bunch more in a box at Los Alamos Sales, but
> only a couple still work. I prefer it to any of the later HP calcs...
> the stuff you really need, like pi and x^y and things, are in plain
> sight.
>
My old Texas Instruments TI-34 has most of the same functions as well as
hex and octal notation. It's not RPN, of course.
In Linux, there is an arbitrary precision calculator called "bc" which
has many functions available, and also can be "programmed".
> I also have a few desktop 9100's that I'd love to get working again.
> That was an awesome machine.
>
> I've been meaning to try the new 35, for carrying around. At least RPN
> isn't totally dead.
>
If you like RPN, try "dc" which is a standard Linux program.
--
Virg Wall, P.E.
Mensanator
I don't know about PDP's, but the minis I built (based on
GA SPC-16) had 3 backplanes: CPU, I/O, EXPANDED MEMORY.
When building the complete computer, they would be brought
up in that order. The bootstrap ROM was part of the EXPANDED
MEMORY, which required a controller in the I/O backplane.
The ASR33 was connected directly to the CPU backplane, so I
spent a good portion of my life toggling in the papertape
bootstrap loader (6 16-bit words) which I eventually
memorized. Not because I wanted to, just from having done
it so often. One day, after leaving that company, I woke
up and suddenly realized I had forgotten the papertape
bootstrap!
What a great feeling, like being released from the French
Foreign Legion.
Walter Bushell
Joe Pfeiffer <pfei...@cs.nmsu.edu> wrote:
Write a c compiler in c is the basic exercise.
Joe Pfeiffer
That's a bigger exercise than needed to get the point across. When I
taught the class a couple of times I defined a small subset of C I
called Cb (pronounced C flat); it wsa written in C, lex, and yacc, and
generated Motorola HC11 code.
FatBytestard
wrote:
It cannot be a basic exercise if one is writing in C. Tee hee hee...
Charles Richmond
> Charles Richmond <fri...@tx.rr.com> writes:
>>
>> [snip...] [snip...] [snip...]
>> 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....
>
In "KSNJFL", each letter was represented by the correct decimal value
in the five-level teletype code that communicated with the computer.
The computer input was mainly paper tape produced by teletype.
Charlie Jones of the University of Iowa sent the following to me in
an email:
Here is the 5-level code used by Illiac, transcribed from THE ILLIAC
MINIATURE MANUAL, by John Halton, Digital Computer Laboratory File 260,
University of Illinois, Urbana, 1958, page 3. I have preserved the
layout as much as is possible using ASCII:
THE TAPE CODE
-------------
| Characters | n for 92 | Characters | n for 92
Tape Holes | F/S | L/S | Orders Tape Holes | F/S | L/S | Orders
---------------------------------- ----------------------------------
| o | 0 P 2F |O o | Delay Delay 3F
| o O| 1 Q 66F |O o O| $(Tab) D 67F
| o O | 2 W 130F |O o O | CR/LF CR/LF 131F
| o OO| 3 E 194F |O o OO| ( B 195F
| oO | 4 R 258F |O oO |L/S=Letter-Shift 259F
| oO O| 5 T 322F |O oO O| , V 323F
| oOO | 6 Y 386F |O oOO | ) A 387F
| oOOO| 7 U 450F |O oOOO| / X 451F
| Oo | 8 I 514F |OOo | Delay Delay 515F
| Oo O| 9 O 578F |OOo O| = G 579F
| Oo O | + K 642F |OOo O | . M 643F
| Oo OO| - S 706F |OOo OO|F/S=Number-Shift 707F
| OoO | N N 770F |OOoO | ' H 771F
| OoO O| J J 834F |OOoO O| : C 835F
| OoOO | F F 898F |OOoOO | x Z 899F
| OoOOO| L L 962F |OOoOOO| Space Space 963F
Charles Richmond
So you just read books, wrote your own compiler, turned it in, and got
a grade??? *No* one was teaching you any of this???
Charles Richmond
Isn't it *more* difficult to produce code for the 8-bit HC-11 than
it would be for the MC68000 ??? The MC68000 has a reasonable assembly
language/machine language for producing code. You can use actual
multiply and divide instructions rather than writing your own multiply
and divide *routines*. (You probably *gave* the students those routines
to call from the compiler binary output.)
And how about linkage to functions??? You *did* have functions???
Charles Richmond
I had a friend who was a grad student. Once he went into the
department office and asked the secretary for some "dildo paper".
She just handed him some ditto paper and said nothing.
Joe Pfeiffer
> Joe Pfeiffer wrote:
>>
>> That's a bigger exercise than needed to get the point across. When I
>> taught the class a couple of times I defined a small subset of C I
>> called Cb (pronounced C flat); it wsa written in C, lex, and yacc, and
>> generated Motorola HC11 code.
>
> Isn't it *more* difficult to produce code for the 8-bit HC-11 than
> it would be for the MC68000 ??? The MC68000 has a reasonable assembly
> language/machine language for producing code. You can use actual
> multiply and divide instructions rather than writing your own multiply
> and divide *routines*. (You probably *gave* the students those routines
> to call from the compiler binary output.)
The HC11 has the huge advantage that it's the machine we use in our
assembly language class (we have them build a SBC and control LEGO
robots with it), so the students already know it and they know the
simulator we use for it.
It's also got multiply and divide instructions. The thing about a toy
language for a class, though is that if it didn't have them, the
language could be defined to not have them either (you have to have
enough operations to exercise operator precedence, but bitwise boolean
operations would suffice for that).
> And how about linkage to functions??? You *did* have functions???
It's got push and pop instructions, pushes return addresses on the
stack, does indexed addressing....
Joe Pfeiffer
> I had a friend who was a grad student. Once he went into the
> department office and asked the secretary for some "dildo paper".
> She just handed him some ditto paper and said nothing.
Dr. Freud, paging Dr. Freud to the white courtesy phone...
Archimedes' Lever
wrote:
>Charles Richmond <fri...@tx.rr.com> writes:
The whole fucking world is shlippin' into darkness all over again.
jmfbahciv
This was in the late 60s and the system was an IBM 1620.
/BAH
jmfbahciv
What books? I don't recall ever seeing a text book.
> wrote your own compiler, turned it in,
Not turned it in. Demo'ed it.
>and got
> a grade???
No grade. The compiler either worked or it didn't. When it worked,
you got an A.
>*No* one was teaching you any of this???
I never got to take the class. and there wasn't anybody to
teach it. The people who did write one learned as they went.
They knew how a compiler was supposed to work because we had
FORTRAN II on the system.
/BAH
>
jmfbahciv
Kewl. All of those are important. I'd add indirection.
/BAH
Joe Pfeiffer
If you mean memory-indirect addressing, no such luck. It's a nice
little machine, but not perfect...
Michael Wojcik
I have RCS archives that are more than 20 years old, which have been
moved from machine to machine and OS to OS, and which are still
perfectly usable. I can extract any version of the source they
contain, and all the metadata is available.
If RCS mysteriously stopped working tomorrow, and I couldn't get it
working again (unlikely, since I have all the sources, and I'm quite
familiar with them, having ported them from Unix to OS/2 and written a
distributed version for OS/400), I could still get the tip version of
the sources from the RCS files themselves, as they're plain ASCII with
reverse deltas in a simple markup language.
With a decent VCS, there shouldn't be any worries about it being
"runnable in the long term". The repository should be accessible as
long as the programs themselves remain relevant. When we can no longer
read ASCII files, I won't need those sources for anything.
--
Michael Wojcik
Micro Focus
Rhetoric & Writing, Michigan State University
jmfbahciv
Can you index the indexes?
/BAH
jmfbahciv
For John Larkin:
If you want to find out how much code any EXE file has, do
the following commands:
GET FOO.EXE
CORE
It should report how many K there is. But this doesn't
give the real size when the EXE is running.
/BAH
Peter Flass
Indirect addressing seems to be politically incorrect these days, along
with the "execute" instruction.
John Larkin
Or just PIP FOO.EXE/L ?
John
krw
>On Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:52:30 +0000 (UTC), Joe Makowiec
><mako...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>
>>On 10 Jun 2009 in alt.folklore.computers, John Larkin wrote:
>>
>>> 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.
>
>Yup, and it still works. I bought that one for about $400 just after
>it came out. I found a bunch more in a box at Los Alamos Sales, but
>only a couple still work. I prefer it to any of the later HP calcs...
>the stuff you really need, like pi and x^y and things, are in plain
>sight.
My HP-45 still works - sorta. The power switch is flaky and I haven't
gotten around to try to "replace" it. I bought a new set of batteries
a couple of years ago and a couple of frame gizmos so I can make my
own packs. eBay is useful for something.
>I also have a few desktop 9100's that I'd love to get working again.
>That was an awesome machine.
>
>I've been meaning to try the new 35, for carrying around. At least RPN
>isn't totally dead.
I bought one a year and a half ago. I like it, but it's no '45. The
function placement just isn't "right".
Joe Pfeiffer
I'm not sure what that would even mean...
John Larkin
>On Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:47:04 -0700, John Larkin
><jjla...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
>
>>On Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:52:30 +0000 (UTC), Joe Makowiec
>><mako...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>>On 10 Jun 2009 in alt.folklore.computers, John Larkin wrote:
>>>
>>>> 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.
>>
>>Yup, and it still works. I bought that one for about $400 just after
>>it came out. I found a bunch more in a box at Los Alamos Sales, but
>>only a couple still work. I prefer it to any of the later HP calcs...
>>the stuff you really need, like pi and x^y and things, are in plain
>>sight.
>
>My HP-45 still works - sorta. The power switch is flaky and I haven't
>gotten around to try to "replace" it.
The worsy thing about the 35s is the erratic power switch, a sliding
thing on a pc board that likes to crud up.
I bought a new set of batteries
>a couple of years ago and a couple of frame gizmos so I can make my
>own packs. eBay is useful for something.
>
>>I also have a few desktop 9100's that I'd love to get working again.
>>That was an awesome machine.
>>
>>I've been meaning to try the new 35, for carrying around. At least RPN
>>isn't totally dead.
>
>I bought one a year and a half ago. I like it, but it's no '45. The
>function placement just isn't "right".
Yeah. They should have done an exact clone. The newer stuff has too
many overloaded buttons, too many functions. On my 32sII's, it's hard
to find basic stuff like pi. And nobody needs a programmable
calculator any more.
One thing on my to-do-probably-never list is to build a true HP35
clone.
John
Archimedes' Lever
<jjla...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
>crud up
Looks like a good nickname for you.
Scott Newell
>
> Yeah. They should have done an exact clone. The newer stuff has too
> many overloaded buttons, too many functions. On my 32sII's, it's hard
> to find basic stuff like pi. And nobody needs a programmable
> calculator any more.
You can put your own firmware in the new 20B, but the keys suck.
(For instance, someone did firmware to simulate an old 45 on
the new 20B.)
> One thing on my to-do-probably-never list is to build a true HP35
> clone.
The latest 12C calcs are using the same CPU as the 20B, so there's
a chance for custom firmware. I'd like to emulate a 16C or 15C on
it, but the key labels would still be wrong.
--
newell N5TNL
jmfbahciv
that's [no execute instruction] not a feature.
/BAH
jmfbahciv
/BAH
jmfbahciv
'ey, krw!
/BAH
jmfbahciv
/BAH
John Larkin
Why not? Because it includes overlays?
Real programmers don't use overlays.
John
jmfbahciv
Look up what a /L does.
/BAH
John Larkin
You don't make much of an effort to be helpful, do you?
John
jmfbahciv
doesn't give you an idea of how the EXE will be mapped
in core.
I have been helpful as best as I can. I've answered your
question. Why you cannot comprehend that there is no
precise answer is beyond me. I'm beginning to think
that you are asking just to be a RPITA.
/BAH
Patrick Scheible
It doesn't seem like it would be that hard to give a range. The
biggest I saw was xxx, the smallest was yyy.
-- Patrick