WANTED: 1983 Jerry Pournelle Column

Mr Emmanuel Roche, France

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Oct 25, 2012, 4:34:52 PM10/25/12

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Some of you may remember that I am working on CB-80, the CBASIC
Compiler.

While searching for any information about it, I found the following
remark:

"I was impressed by the favorable comments made by Jerry
Pournelle about CB-80 in BYTE magazine."

This remark was published in December 1983...

So,
is anybody out there
who has all the issues of BYTE magazine, year 1983, and would mind
browsing Jerry Pournelle's columns ("Chaos Manor", started in January
1982) and would report what mentions of CB-80 that he will find?

Yours Sincerely,
Mr. Emmanuel Roche, France

David Schultz

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Oct 25, 2012, 7:23:34 PM10/25/12

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August 1983 has an article (in addition to the regular column) that
briefly discusses several programming languages including CB-80.

There appears to be something resembling a collection of BYTE magazines
here: http://www27.us.archive.org/details/byte-magazine

Including Vol. 8 No. 8 from which I quote a sample:

"With CB-80 it's possible to write
structured programs. Moreover, the
compiler can be used to catch a lot
of bugs. Example: my minimum
database has a procedure to check
the size of any entry. This is useful,
because entries that are too long
can't be printed properly (especially
if they're to be printed on a mailing
label). The original program got its
input by calling a subroutine that
both input the data and checked the
input length."

There aren't a lot of issues archived there but they do seem to cover
the period you are interested in.

--
David W. Schultz
http://home.earthlink.net/~david.schultz
Returned for Regrooving

Mr Emmanuel Roche, France

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Oct 26, 2012, 1:50:00 AM10/26/12

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Hello, David!

> August 1983 has an article (in addition to the regular column) that
> briefly discusses several programming languages including CB-80.

Ok. I will have a look.

CB-80 is one of the less mentioned PLs in the history of CP/M, so it
is interesting. So far, I have been unable to find one article about
it, yet Digital Research was selling it, and there were adverts.

> There appears to be something resembling a collection of BYTE magazines
> here:http://www27.us.archive.org/details/byte-magazine

> There aren't a lot of issues archived there but they do seem to cover
> the period you are interested in.

I remembered that a "Scanned issues of Byte finally available" thread
had been published in the comp.os.cpm Newsgroup. It was published the
15 March 2011.

I followed it, and arrived at:

http://malus.exotica.org.uk/~buzz/byte/pdf/

which has more issues of BYTE, including the one mentioned.

roch...@laposte.net

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Oct 26, 2012, 7:03:13 AM10/26/12

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I finally was able to download the PDF file.

It is a huge PDF file.

I read twice the column of Jerry Pournelle without finding anything about CB-80.

I finally ended understanding that this special issue of BYTE, dealing with the C programming language, had an additional article by jerry, talking about the various PLs available under CP/M.

- "The debate goes on..."
Jerry Pournelle
"BYTE", Vol.8, No.8, August 1983, p.312

In short, Jerry talks about CB-80, APL, Forth & LISP, COBOL & FORTRAN, PL/I, C, Pascal & Modula-2, and Ada.

It was funny to learn that Joan K. Hugues, who wrote the classic PL/I book "PL/I Structured Programming", wrote all the programs for her microcomputer consulting firm in CBASIC!

So, it seems that IBM was not the only one to notice the value of the CBASIC Compiler...