REXX still going strong after 25 years
Anne & Lynn Wheeler
http://www.rexxla.org/
http://www.rexxla.org/Symposium/2004/announcement.html
and from slashdot
http://developers.slashdot.org/developers/04/03/24/0034224.shtml?tid=126&tid=136&tid=156&tid=187
and 2/26/80 conference referenced in posting earlier today
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004d.html#16 IBM 360 memory thread
also had presentation on rex(x) by Mike
of all the wierd things to trip across, i have an
H-assembly listing of DMSRVA ASSEMBLE that has a munged date but is
probably sometime in 1983
and
H-assembly listing done 13may83 of DMSREX ASSEMBLE dated 15apr83
--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler - http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/
David Wade
news:m3d671o...@lhwlinux.garlic.com...
>
> http://www.rexxla.org/
> http://www.rexxla.org/Symposium/2004/announcement.html
> and from slashdot
>
http://developers.slashdot.org/developers/04/03/24/0034224.shtml?tid=126&tid
=136&tid=156&tid=187
>
> and 2/26/80 conference referenced in posting earlier today
> http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004d.html#16 IBM 360 memory thread
>
> also had presentation on rex(x) by Mike
>
> of all the wierd things to trip across, i have an
>
> H-assembly listing of DMSRVA ASSEMBLE that has a munged date but is
> probably sometime in 1983
>
Don't recall what this one does
> and
>
> H-assembly listing done 13may83 of DMSREX ASSEMBLE dated 15apr83
>
If its "H" is it part of VM or an PRPQ add one or what ?
Anne & Lynn Wheeler
> If its "H" is it part of VM or an PRPQ add one or what ?
H-assembler was commonly available in the 70s & 80s on (ibm) mainframe
platforms. the original commoningly available 360 assembler was the
f-assembler. then came h-assembler with a lot of additional features
and performance. then there were the slac-mods to h-assembler ...
post on h-assembler & slac-mods:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003n.html#34 Macros and base register question
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004c.html#13 Yakaota
other refs to the slac mods and assembler H
http://www.xephon.com/arcinframe.php/m090a06
this makes reference to H, XF, HLASM, slac-mods, etc ... all in their
MVS incantations (and their proclib procedures):
http://docweb.nerdc.ufl.edu/docweb.nsf/0/e754c7d0eddc8e5285256bf900674d74?OpenDocument
from comment section for DMSRVA:
Handle all interfaces to the current generation of
variables.
... in this time frame, REXX was still internal use only, and
customers had possibly hardly even heard of it ... and it was still
called REX. The name change to REXX didn't occur until it was released
as product to customers (if i remember correctly there was issue with
soembody already having some rights to REX).
I had done a SHARE presentation on DUMPRX ... sort of stressing that
it had all been done in REX (except for about 100 assembler
instructions) and therefor got around the OCO issue, was ten times
more function than the (asssembler-based) product, ten times faster
than the (assembler-based) procduct, took about half my time over 3
months to develop ... and therefor others should be able to do
something similar also.
misc. past posts on dumprx (and dump readers, hung/zombie processes in
general):
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#dumprx
--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler | http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/
arargh4...@now.at.arargh.com
<ly...@garlic.com> wrote:
>H-assembler was commonly available in the 70s & 80s on (ibm) mainframe
>platforms. the original commoningly available 360 assembler was the
>f-assembler. then came h-assembler with a lot of additional features
>and performance. then there were the slac-mods to h-assembler ...
I thought that 'f' came with the O/S, and 'H' was a program product
that cost extra.
And then there was 'g', a non IBM version, of which my tape may still
be readable after 30 years.
<snip>
--
Arargh403 at [drop the 'http://www.' from ->] http://www.arargh.com
BCET Basic Compiler Page: http://www.arargh.com/basic/index.html
To reply by email, remove the garbage from the reply address.
Anne & Lynn Wheeler
> I thought that 'f' came with the O/S, and 'H' was a program product
> that cost extra.
>
> And then there was 'g', a non IBM version, of which my tape may
> still be readable after 30 years.
a table i found at:
http://www-306.ibm.com/software/awdtools/hlasm/history.html
Date Product Action
31 March 1983 Assember H V2 Released for GA*
26 June 1992 High Level Assembler V1R1 Released for GA
9 August 1994 Assembler H V2 Withdrawn
24 March 1995 High Level Assembler V1R2 Released for GA
15 December 1995 High Level Assembler Toolkit Feature Released for GA
31 October 1995 Assember H V2 End of service
31 December 1995 High Level Assembler V1R1 End of service
20 February 1996 S/390 Software Version Version promotion
6 August 1996 S/390 Software Version Version promotion
4 September 1996 029 Card Punch Withdrawn
18 February 1997 S/390 Software Version Version promotion
1 August 1997 HLASM Toolkit Feature Upgrade 1 Released for GA
15 October 1997 HLASM Toolkit Feature Upgrade 2 Released for GA
25 September 1998 High Level Assembler and Toolkit Released for GA
Feature V1R3
30 June 2000 High Level Assembler V1R2 Marketing withdrawn
(VSE)
29 September 2000 High Level Assembler and Toolkit Released for GA
Feature V1R4
29 September 2001 HLASM V1R4 ASMIDF/MVS 64-bit support Released for GA
31 December 2001 High Level Assembler V1R2 Service withdrawn
6 August 2002 High Level Assembler and Toolkit Announcement of
Feature V1R3 service withdrawal
for 6 Oct 2003
"balsyle memo" from vmshare archives .... started 1/16/84 by Mike to
discuss assembler coding style used in rexx source
http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare/browse?fn=BALSTYLE&ft=MEMO
note above includes some people making references to TSS/360 assembler
"rexx89 memo" from vmshare archives ... posts prior to 1989, originally
created 1/24/86
http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare/browse?fn=REXX89&ft=MEMO
"rexx memo" from vmshare archives
http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare/browse?fn=REXX&ft=MEMO
"rexx90 prob" from vmshare archives ... posts prior to 1990, originally
created 3/11/84:
http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare/browse?fn=REXX90&ft=PROB
"rexx prob" from vmshare archives (first post 5/31/91)
http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare/browse?fn=REXX&ft=PROB
and for something completely different, "wylbur memo" from vmshare
archives:
http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare/browse?fn=WYLBUR&ft=MEMO
--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler - http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/
arargh4...@now.at.arargh.com
<ly...@garlic.com> wrote:
>arargh4...@NOW.AT.arargh.com writes:
>> I thought that 'f' came with the O/S, and 'H' was a program product
>> that cost extra.
>>
>> And then there was 'g', a non IBM version, of which my tape may
>> still be readable after 30 years.
>
>a table i found at:
>http://www-306.ibm.com/software/awdtools/hlasm/history.html
<snip>
I remember the blue covered manuals for asm H from when I worked on
360s.
1970-1975.
At least I think I do.
That's also when I got the 'g' tape.
Brian Inglis
Lynn Wheeler <ly...@garlic.com> wrote:
>arargh4...@NOW.AT.arargh.com writes:
>> I thought that 'f' came with the O/S, and 'H' was a program product
>> that cost extra.
>>
>> And then there was 'g', a non IBM version, of which my tape may
>> still be readable after 30 years.
>
>a table i found at:
>http://www-306.ibm.com/software/awdtools/hlasm/history.html
>
>Date Product Action
>31 March 1983 Assember H V2 Released for GA*
>26 June 1992 High Level Assembler V1R1 Released for GA
>9 August 1994 Assembler H V2 Withdrawn
>29 September 2000 High Level Assembler and Toolkit Released for GA
> Feature V1R4
>29 September 2001 HLASM V1R4 ASMIDF/MVS 64-bit support Released for GA
What's the difference between the High Level Assembler and Toolkit and
Assemblers F and H?
--
Thanks. Take care, Brian Inglis Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Brian....@CSi.com (Brian dot Inglis at SystematicSw dot ab dot ca)
fake address use address above to reply
Anne & Lynn Wheeler
> What's the difference between the High Level Assembler and Toolkit and
> Assemblers F and H?
some of the diffs seem to be picking up stuff from the slac-mods
... but I think most of that actually happened for XF.
almost all the detailed description are pdf files. the previous
history URL has pointer to feature overview
http://www-306.ibm.com/software/awdtools/hlasm/
summary:
http://www-306.ibm.com/software/awdtools/hlasm/more.html
from above:
High Level Assembler provides:
* Extensions to the basic assembler language.
* Extensions to the macro and conditional assembly language, including
external function calls and built-in functions.
* Enhancements to the assembly listing, including a new macro and copy
code member cross reference section, and a new section that lists
all the unreferenced symbols defined in CSECTs.
* New assembler options, such as:
o a new associated data file, the ADATA file, containing both
language-dependent and language-independent records, that can be
used by debugging and other tools;
o a DOS operation code table to assist in migration from DOS/VSE
assembler;
o the use of 31-bit addressing for most working storage requirements;
o a generalized object format data set; and
o internal performance enhancements and diagnostic capabilities.
High Level Assembler generates object programs from assembler language
programs that use the following machine instructions:
* System/370
* System/370 Extended Architecture (370-XA)
* Enterprise Systems Architecture/370? (ESA/370)
* Enterprise Systems Architecture/390 (ESA/390®).
some more feature:
http://www-306.ibm.com/software/awdtools/hlasm/about.html
more details are in share presentation:
http://www.share.org/proceedings/sh98/data/S8165B.PDF
the program understanding tool from the HLASM toolkit:
http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/zseries/os/vse/pdf/orlando2000/E29.pdf
which sounds a little bit like a PLI program that I wrote in the early
70s to analyze/understand 370 assembler listings, extracting code
flow, register use/set, building looping and if/then/else/when/etc
logic structures. There was some ambiguity in analyzing the listing
file since the address fields didn't give the actual domain space the
address existing in. That was one difference between F/X/XF assembler
listings and tss/360/370 listings where every displacement/address
field was prefixed by its csect/dsect index (aka there was less
ambiguity analyzing tss/370 listings)
more detailed posting:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#12 360 "OS" & "TSS" assemblers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000d.html#36 Assembly language formatting on IBM systems
Dave Daniels
About twenty years ago tbe VM systems programmer where I worked
gave me a printed listing of a full assembly of Rexx. It was
about a box of paper. I do not have it now.
Dave Daniels
Anne & Lynn Wheeler
> About twenty years ago tbe VM systems programmer where I worked
> gave me a printed listing of a full assembly of Rexx. It was
> about a box of paper. I do not have it now.
need 117 character wide display ... from some place:
DDDDDDDDD MM MM SSSSSSSSSS RRRRRRRRRRR EEEEEEEEEEEE XX XX
DDDDDDDDDD MMM MMM SSSSSSSSSSSS RRRRRRRRRRRR EEEEEEEEEEEE XX XX
DD DD MMMM MMMM SS SS RR RR EE XX XX
DD DD MM MM MM MM SS RR RR EE XX XX
DD DD MM MMMM MM SSS RR RR EE XX XX
DD DD MM MM MM SSSSSSSSS RRRRRRRRRRRR EEEEEEEE XXXX
DD DD MM MM SSSSSSSSS RRRRRRRRRRR EEEEEEEE XXXX
DD DD MM MM SSS RR RR EE XX XX
DD DD MM MM SS RR RR EE XX XX
DD DD MM MM SS SS RR RR EE XX XX
DDDDDDDDDD MM MM SSSSSSSSSSSS RR RR EEEEEEEEEEEE XX XX
DDDDDDDDD MM MM SSSSSSSSSS RR RR EEEEEEEEEEEE XX XX
AAAAAAAAAA SSSSSSSSSS SSSSSSSSSS EEEEEEEEEEEE MM MM BBBBBBBBBBB LL YY YY
AAAAAAAAAAAA SSSSSSSSSSSS SSSSSSSSSSSS EEEEEEEEEEEE MMM MMM BBBBBBBBBBBB LL YY YY
AA AA SS SS SS SS EE MMMM MMMM BB BB LL YY YY
AA AA SS SS EE MM MM MM MM BB BB LL YY YY
AA AA SSS SSS EE MM MMMM MM BB BB LL YY YY
AAAAAAAAAAAA SSSSSSSSS SSSSSSSSS EEEEEEEE MM MM MM BBBBBBBBBB LL YYYY
AAAAAAAAAAAA SSSSSSSSS SSSSSSSSS EEEEEEEE MM MM BBBBBBBBBB LL YY
AA AA SSS SSS EE MM MM BB BB LL YY
AA AA SS SS EE MM MM BB BB LL YY
AA AA SS SS SS SS EE MM MM BB BB LL YY
AA AA SSSSSSSSSSSS SSSSSSSSSSSS EEEEEEEEEEEE MM MM BBBBBBBBBBBB LLLLLLLLLLLL YY
AA AA SSSSSSSSSS SSSSSSSSSS EEEEEEEEEEEE MM MM BBBBBBBBBBB LLLLLLLLLLLL YY
DMSREX assembled from REXPAK (2099 records, 04/15/83 17:19:55)
Printed by Userid MFC, on 13 May 1983 at 16:45:40
--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler | http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/
Brian Inglis
Lynn Wheeler <ly...@garlic.com> wrote:
>Dave Daniels <dave_d...@argonet.co.uk> writes:
>> About twenty years ago tbe VM systems programmer where I worked
>> gave me a printed listing of a full assembly of Rexx. It was
>> about a box of paper. I do not have it now.
>DMSREX assembled from REXPAK (2099 records, 04/15/83 17:19:55)
>Printed by Userid MFC, on 13 May 1983 at 16:45:40
A present from Mike, how nice. ;^>
glen herrmannsfeldt
> H-assembler was commonly available in the 70s & 80s on (ibm) mainframe
> platforms. the original commoningly available 360 assembler was the
> f-assembler. then came h-assembler with a lot of additional features
> and performance. then there were the slac-mods to h-assembler ...
> post on h-assembler & slac-mods:
Also, Assembler G from Waterloo.
Is assembler H really supposed to need 256K, or is it because the
previous letters were already taken.
-- glen
Charles Richmond
IBM directly...and ASSIST was from Waterloo...
--
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
| Charles and Francis Richmond richmond at plano dot net |
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
Anne & Lynn Wheeler
> I always thought that Assembler G and Assembler H were from
> IBM directly...and ASSIST was from Waterloo...
fortran e, Fortran g, fortran h
assembler e, assembler f, assembler h, etc
website with list of products & product codes:
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/gsf/tools/product.codes.html
from above:
ASSEMBLER
360S-AS-036 S/360 OS ASSEMBLER (E)
360S-AS-037 S/360 OS ASSEMBLER (F) 360SAS037 IEU
5734-AS1 OS ASSEMBLER H 5734AS100 IEV
5752-SC103 OS/VS ASSEMBLER (XF) 5741SC103 IFO,IFN
5668-962 ASSEMBLER H V2 566896201 IEV
5696-234 HIGH-LEVEL ASSEMBLER 569623400 ASM
FORTRAN
360S-FO-092 S/360 OS FORTRAN IV (E)
360S-FO-520 S/360 OS FORTRAN IV (G) '' IEY,IHC
360S-FO-500 S/360 OS FORTRAN IV (H) '' IEK,IHC
5734-FO1 FORTRAN CODE AND GO COMPILER
5734-FO2 FORTRAN IV G1 IGI
5734-FO3 FORTRAN IV H EXTENDED IFE
5799-AAW FORTRAN IV H EXTENDED PLUS
5748-FO3 VS FORTRAN V1 IFX,IFY
5668-806 VS FORTRAN V2 (COMP/LIB/DEBUG) 5668-806 ???,AFB
5688-087 VS FORTRAN V2 (COMP/LIB) ???,AFB
5796-PKR Ext. Exponent Range for FORTRAN 5796-PKR
old RFC mentioning assembler g
http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc90.html
XREF40 product that converts each translator signature into 2-character
code:
http://gsf-soft.com/Products/XREF40.html
from above (even reference to the rexx compiler):
Most compilers include their own "compiler signature", or "Translator
ID", in the object code they generate. These signatures
(e.g. 5740CB100 0204) are stored by the linkage-editor or binder into
the IDR records of the load-module or program object.
XREF40 converts each translator signature to a 2-character code,
referred to as the "abbreviated translator code". As not all compilers
or assemblers provide a signature, XREF40 can still recognize certain
translators using other criteria when no signature is present for a
given module (CSECT).
Code Translator name
AE S/360 OS ASSEMBLER (E)
AF S/360 OS ASSEMBLER (F)
AG WATERLOO ASSEMBLER (G)
AL S/360 OS ALGOL (F)
A1 APL/360
A1 APL2 V1
A2 APL2 VERSION 2
BA VS BASIC
C C FOR SYSTEM/370 (MVS)
C C/370 COMPILER AND LIBRARY V2
C C/370 COMPILER V1 V2
C SAA AD/CYCLE C/370 V1 V2
CA OS FULL ANS COBOL V3
CA OS FULL ANS COBOL V4
CA S/360 OS FULL ANS COBOL V1 V2
CE S/360 OS COBOL (E)
C1 VS COBOL FOR OS/VS (R2M2)
C1 VS COBOL FOR OS/VS (R2M3)
C2 VS COBOL II
C3 COBOL/370 and COBOL for MVS (5688-197)
C3 COBOL for OS/390 (5648-A25)
C3 Enterprise COBOL (5655-G53)
E+ EASYTRIEVE PLUS (EZPDRIVR)
F? FORTRAN IV (H EXTENDED PLUS)
FC OS FORTRAN CODE AND GO COMPILER
FE S/360 OS SYSTEM FORTRAN IV (E)
FG OS FORTRAN IV G1
FH OS FORTRAN IV H EXTENDED
F2 VS FORTRAN V2 (COMP/LIB)
F2 VS FORTRAN V2 (COMP/LIB/DEBUG)
F3 VS FORTRAN R3
HL HIGH-LEVEL ASSEMBLER
H1 ASSEMBLER H V1
H2 ASSEMBLER H V2
PA VS PASCAL
PF S/360 OS PL/1 (F)
PG Visual Age PL/I
PK OS PL/I CHECKOUT COMPILER
PM PL/I FOR MVS AND VM
PV PASCAL/VS
P1 OS PL/I OPTIMIZING COMPILER V1
P2 OS PL/I V2
P3 Enterprise PL/I
RG RPG II
RG S/360 OS RPG
RX REXX/370
XF OS/VS ASSEMBLER (XF)
--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler - http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/
Joe Morris
>I always thought that Assembler G and Assembler H were from
>IBM directly...and ASSIST was from Waterloo...
ASMF and ASMH are IBM products (free/unfree, respectively).
ASMG is a cleanup of ASMF, and was built at Waterloo.
ASSIST (at least the program of that name that I know) was the
product of Charles Hughes and Charlse Pfleeger, originally (IIRC)
at Penn State and later Tennessee.
Joe Morris
NoSpam
news:c4krq5$e2c$2...@newslocal.mitre.org...
>
> ---snip---
>
> ASSIST (at least the program of that name that I know) was the
> product of Charles Hughes and Charlse Pfleeger, originally (IIRC)
> at Penn State and later Tennessee.
>
I thought that ASSIST was written by John Mashey at Penn State.
Anne & Lynn Wheeler
> I thought that ASSIST was written by John Mashey at Penn State.
wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mashey
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASSIST
another description:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASSIST
and it is available here:
http://mstack.cs.niu.edu/pub/ASSIST/
from above:
http://mstack.cs.niu.edu/pub/ASSIST/ASREPLGD.HTML
http://mstack.cs.niu.edu/pub/ASSIST/ASUSERGD.HTML
and for something completely different ... one university's
computer history that is farily typical (which happened to
include an extraneous reference to ASSIST):
http://www.wvnet.edu/divisions/systems/history/events.html
in the above history, they mention in the first entry (sept. 69)
running CPS (converstational programming system). CPS was done
by the Boston Programmming Center ... which was on the 3rd floor
of 545tech sq ... other postings about 545 tech sq:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
nat rochester, jean sammet and others were at the Boston programming
center. In the growth of CP/67 and transition to VM/370, the group was
spun off from the science center and eventually took over all of third
floor as well as absorbing the boston programming center (and most of
their people). As the vm/370 group continued to grow, they eventually
had to move out to the old SBC bldg at Burlington Mall (SBC had
earlier been spun off to CSC as part of some legal action). CPS
included optional support for a special microcode option for the
360/50 that sped up a number of CPS operations.
The CMS COPYFILE command is notorious as having been implemented by a
former boston programming individual.
and for true topic drift, random past sammet references:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000d.html#37 S/360 development burnout?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#66 360 Architecture, Multics, ... was (Re: X86 ultimate CISC? No.)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001m.html#47 TSS/360
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002h.html#59 history of CMS
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002j.html#17 CDC6600 - just how powerful a machine was it?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002o.html#76 (old) list of (old) books
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002o.html#78 Newsgroup cliques?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003c.html#0 Wanted: Weird Programming Language
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003c.html#1 Wanted: Weird Programming Language
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003k.html#55 S/360 IPL from 7 track tape
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004.html#20 BASIC Language History?
--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler - http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/
Charles Richmond
assembly language class. Somehow the class began using some
Assembler G instead of ASSIST...about the time that they started
covering packed decimal arithmetic. Somehow she got the erroneous
idea that the packed decimal instructions were *not* available
in ASSIST, and that one had to use Assembler G to make use of
these instructions.
Joe Morris
>"Joe Morris" <jcmo...@mitre.org> wrote:
>> ASSIST (at least the program of that name that I know) was the
>> product of Charles Hughes and Charlse Pfleeger, originally (IIRC)
>> at Penn State and later Tennessee.
>>
>I thought that ASSIST was written by John Mashey at Penn State.
If someone can post good info about the parentage of ASSIST I'll not
dispute any differences with what I posted; my reference to Hughes
and Pfleeger came from comments about them when they joined the CS
department at Tennessee where at the time I was the chief sysprog
for the computer center.
Joe Morris
Brian Inglis
That's a later version:
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=803468&dl=ACM&coll=portal
C.E.Hughes, C.P.Pfleeger, ASSIST-V: A tool for studying the
implementation of operating systems
references:
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=569933&dl=ACM&coll=portal
J.R.Mashey, G.M.Campbell, C.Forney,Jr., Assist: a self modifiable
assembler for instructional purposes, Proceedings of the ACM annual
conference, August 1972
Mashey, J.R., "Three years' experience with a student oriented
assembler", SIGCSE Bulletin 5 (1973), p. 157-165.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mashey
He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from Pennsylvania State
University. John was widely known for the IBM Model 360 assembler
language teaching software, ASSIST (Assembler System for Student
Instruction and Systems Teaching), he developed while at Penn State
with the help of his computer science students.
3.0/B
http://www.cbttape.org/features/assistmn.htm
http://ukcc.uky.edu/~ukccinfo.391/assistmn.html
http://www.cs.niu.edu/csci/360/asusergd.shtml
http://www.cs.niu.edu/csci/464/doc/assist/asusergd.html
4.0/A
http://www.ksu.edu/cns/pubs/mvs/assist/assist.pdf
old_sys...@yahoo.com
1) I wrote the original ASSIST [as a research assistant, mostly in
1970]; Graham Campbell got the money for me to do this, and wrote the
macro processor; I did some other parts later, as did a bunch of
students working for me, as I was an instructor by then. Chuck Forney
was the Asst. Director of the PSU Computer Center, and the SHARE HASP
project manager (enshrined in at least one SHARE HASP song, who made
sure we got the OS support needed. Hence, the authorship of the
original paper.)
Graham, I or Charlie Hughes [who was my PhD advisor] often taught the
several courses in which ASSIST was used. As I finished up PhD, and
left academe for Bell Labs in 1973 [and mostly left IBM S/360 for
PDP-11 UNIX, except for occasional Pl/I programs on the former],
Charlie took ASSIST over, and later moved to Tennessee, and he and
Chuck Pfleeger continued enhancing it. A lot of work was also done at
Northern Illinois University over the years; see
http://mstack.cs.niu.edu/ for example, or the Overbeek/Singletary book
that used ASSIST.
2) Before I got out of this in 1973, something like 200-300
installations existed. ASSIST had some built-in special instructions
for I/O (and subroutine linkage, and conversions), for which the
identical functions were handled by a macro-package called the
"X-MACROS"; some people used the macros for production code, because
they abstracted away a bunch of the messy I/O setup, and sometimes
people used ASSIST for debugging, and then Assembler (G usually) for
the production code.
3) The confusion with Waterloo probably occurs because ASSIST was often
used in conjunction with WATFOR / WATFIV in "fast batch" setups, i.e.,
a large 360 (such as /67 at Penn State or /75 at Waterloo) would run a
"batch monitor" setup, in which one partition would accept a stream of
well-controlled student jobs, typically limited to 5 seconds total
run-time. [This involved a certain amount of faking OS/MFT, and making
sure that jobs didn't blow up the monitor.] Students could submit
their own punch-card decks to remote-job-enty systems (often IBM
360/20) and get very fast turnaround.
This all sounds atrociously primitive ... but it gave large numbers of
students quick access relatively cheaply, and of course, given things
like subscript-checking in WATFOR, and ASSIST being an interpreter that
initialized memory, and minimized hexadecimal-dump sizes, and gave
isntruction tracebacks. was certainly more productive, especially for
student jobs that usually didn't get very far.
The other program, somewhat similar to ASSIST, and also widely used,
was SPASM, by John Ehrman of SLAC.
4) Some variant or other of ASSIST was still being used in 2002, at
SHARE meeting:
Google: share ehrman 2002 assist dravnieks
, i.e., ASSIST/I, a PC version of ASSIST written at NIU.
And, NIU is apparently still using it:
http://www.cs.niu.edu/csci/464/books.shtml
5) About 10 years after the last work I did on it, I ran into somebody
at UCLA at a conference, who eyed my name badge, and said:
"you!"
me: "uh yes"
them: "We got this message, ASSIST ABEND 102 - SEND DECK TO MASHEY"
which shows that you should never, ever embed your name in code in this
way. I of course,thought I'd eliminated all such things, but missed
one.
6) One of my favorite features was something called the "Replace
Monitor". A student could be given an I/O spec for a routine that
existed inside ASSIST itself, such as a symbol-tabel routine. The
student's code was assembled, and then a test program could be run,
where the real code would be called, and the student's code called
(interpretively), and the results compared, giving the student feedback
about the correctness and performance of the code. [I.e., routine
called N times, of which N-1 were correct, and using X total
isntructions.] Many internal routines were written to allow
"replacement": the main benefit actually turned out to be the fact that
this enforced very clean data-passing conventions, minimization of
side-effects on global flags, etc.
7) Obviously, for a program to last *35* years, LOTS of people did a
lot of work, following the 2-3 years when I was directly involved.
Personally, I had to learn a lot about building parameterized software
that isolated operating-system dependencies (since it ran on different
OSs), was delivered with machine-readable documentation, could be
generated to delete various optional features, and could be maintained
by other people. Of course, having thus helped *lots* to students
learn assembly language, I then spent a lot of years trying to get
people to avoid writing in assembler in favor of using higher-level
languages, preferably above C [i.e., that's what shell procedures were
about]. The main reason for this was to make sure students had *some*
idea of the Instruction Set Architectures of real machines, not so all
of them would spend their lives cranking out assembly code.
Joe Morris
>1) I wrote the original ASSIST [as a research assistant, mostly in
>1970]; Graham Campbell got the money for me to do this, and wrote the
>macro processor; I did some other parts later, as did a bunch of
>students working for me, as I was an instructor by then. Chuck Forney
>was the Asst. Director of the PSU Computer Center, and the SHARE HASP
>project manager (enshrined in at least one SHARE HASP song, who made
>sure we got the OS support needed. Hence, the authorship of the
>original paper.)
Chuck was also, as a result of his leadership of the HASP project, the
master of ceremonies at the HASP sing-along that was held on Thursday
nights at every major SHARE meeting; after being an informal gathering
for many years it later became a formally-scheduled session. After
the New York unions tried to stop it at one meeting the SHARE board
agreed to formally support it, and passed a resolution to supply
"a HASP model 88, with no strings attached" at the session.
<tune: Auld Lang Syne>
Should Old Chuck Forney be forgot,
And HASP songs sung no more?
>Graham, I or Charlie Hughes [who was my PhD advisor] often taught the
>several courses in which ASSIST was used. As I finished up PhD, and
>left academe for Bell Labs in 1973 [and mostly left IBM S/360 for
>PDP-11 UNIX, except for occasional Pl/I programs on the former],
>Charlie took ASSIST over, and later moved to Tennessee, and he and
>Chuck Pfleeger continued enhancing it.
Ah, thanks for the info. When Hughes and Pfleeger came to Tennessee
the announcements issued by the (realatively new) CS department
emphasized their association with ASSIST, and if it noted that the two
were not the actual originators of the program I don't recall it.
>The other program, somewhat similar to ASSIST, and also widely used,
>was SPASM, by John Ehrman of SLAC.
Single Pass ASSembler. John left SLAC to work for IBM (at Santa Teresa,
I believe); I suspect that he's retired by now.
One year John came up with the SHARE button that read:
FREE THE
FORTRAN 77
and at the next meeting he had applied a PTF to the button, which now read:
FIX THE
FORTRAN 77
He also had a button that read:
SANTA TERESA
ORA PRO NOBIS
>And, NIU is apparently still using it:
>http://www.cs.niu.edu/csci/464/books.shtml
That would probably be related to Robert Rannie's "Systems Programming"
classes at NIU. (Robert was my opposite number at Oak Ridge National
Labs.)
Joe Morris
Dave Daniels
> FREE THE
> FORTRAN 77
> and at the next meeting he had applied a PTF to the button, which now read:
> FIX THE
> FORTRAN 77
I assume that this is a reference to VSFORTRAN release 1. This
is the one where IBM sent out a newsletter to users because it
what they called 'quality control problems'. The first release
had no optimisation and there was none in it until release 3.
This made the compiler a non-starter as far as our technical
people were concerned. Then there were the bugs. A few I can
remember were:
1) Using a seven-character identifier in a DATA statement
caused an abend.
2) Variable names starting with the letter 'Z' put the
compiler into a loop (!!)
3) Under CMS, FORTVS * issued the command 'ERASE * TEXT'
And so on. IBM put a lot of effort into it and by release 3
it was a much better program. It was stunningly fast on a
3032 under CMS (or, at least, I was stunned).
Dave Daniels
Brian Inglis
Daniels <dave_d...@argonet.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <d2bmab$pc6$1...@newslocal.mitre.org>,
> Joe Morris <jcmo...@mitre.org> wrote:
>> One year John came up with the SHARE button that read:
>
>> FREE THE
>> FORTRAN 77
>
>> and at the next meeting he had applied a PTF to the button, which now read:
>
>> FIX THE
>> FORTRAN 77
>
>I assume that this is a reference to VSFORTRAN release 1. This
>is the one where IBM sent out a newsletter to users because it
>what they called 'quality control problems'. The first release
>had no optimisation and there was none in it until release 3.
>This made the compiler a non-starter as far as our technical
>people were concerned. Then there were the bugs. A few I can
>remember were:
>
>1) Using a seven-character identifier in a DATA statement
> caused an abend.
Keyword lookup bug?
>2) Variable names starting with the letter 'Z' put the
> compiler into a loop (!!)
Symbol table lookup bug?
>3) Under CMS, FORTVS * issued the command 'ERASE * TEXT'
Premature erasure of output file(s)?
Generally, ouch!
--
Thanks. Take care, Brian Inglis Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Brian....@CSi.com (Brian[dot]Inglis{at}SystematicSW[dot]ab[dot]ca)