Not just Unisys/Burroughs history

[curt timmerman]

Found this link in an article:
http://www.oldcomputerbooks.com/

Computer history buffs will enjoy this old book site, most seem reasonably priced.

One offering B5000 fans will be interested in:
https://www.oldcomputerbooks.com/pages/books/R305/annals-of-the-history-of-computing/special-issue-the-burroughs-b-5000-volume-9-number-1-1987-of-the-annals-of-the-history-of-computing

As an aside, under the ITEM DESCRIPTION, the very last name looks to me link geek humor. :-)

Enjoy,
Curt

[Paul Kimpel]

Thanks for the reference, Curt. The main article from that issue,
discussing the B5000 in retrospect, is available publicly at

https://www.computer.org/cms/ComputingNow/computingthen/atty/1987/CT_1987-2_B5000Restrospect.pdf

That document is based on an oral history interview with several of the
project participants that is available here:

https://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/handle/11299/107105/oh098b5c.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

I find this discussion fascinating, not only for the interplay between
the very strong personalities involved, but also for the vision these
people had and their commitment to trying to realize it.

The Design of the B5000 paper is available several places, including
this one:

https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~kubitron/cs252/handouts/papers/b5000.pdf

Alastair J.W. Mayer wrote a very interesting article on the B5000/5500
in 1982 that makes points that are still relevant today. It can also be
found in several places, including this one:

https://www.smecc.org/The%20Architecture%20%20of%20the%20Burroughs%20B-5000.htm

Finally, there is Richard Waychoff's very entertaining and occasionally
irreverent memoir of the original B5000 project. The original
line-printer version can be found here:

http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Knuth_Don_X4100/PDF_index/k-8-pdf/k-8-u2779-B5000-People.pdf

but a more readable one is here:

http://www.ianjoyner.name/Files/Waychoff.pdf

Plus the famous Algol Syntax Chart, mentioned in Waychoff's memoir,
which is arguably the origin of "railroad track" syntax diagrams:

http://ianjoyner.name/Files/Algol_Syntax_Chart.pdf
--
Paul

[Paul Kimpel]

On 6/25/2018 11:27 AM, curt timmerman wrote:
> As an aside, under the ITEM DESCRIPTION, the very last name looks to me link geek humor. :-)

You mean?

"discussion on the B 5000 in retrospect (Barton, Berce, Collins,
Creech, Dahm et al)."

Dahm refers to Dave Dahm, who worked on the B5000/5500, B6x00, and later
systems. He was one of the architects, along with Roy Guck, of DMSII.
Creech refers to Bobby Creech, who also worked on those systems and
ended up running the Small Systems operation. I met Barton once, and was
good friends with Al Collins until he passed away in 2010.

I've put in an order for that copy of the Annals, as it's very relevant
to my B5500 emulator project, and I have not found some of the articles
it contains elsewhere. I really appreciate you bringing this to my
attention. Thanks again.
--
Paul

[curt timmerman]

Paul

I wasn't questioning the name, just the 'et al' after the name. Thanks for the links,
Curt

[Scott Lurndal]

Paul Kimpel <paul....@digm.com> writes:
>On 6/25/2018 11:27 AM, curt timmerman wrote:
>> As an aside, under the ITEM DESCRIPTION, the very last name looks to me link geek humor. :-)
>
>You mean?
>
> "discussion on the B 5000 in retrospect (Barton, Berce, Collins,
> Creech, Dahm et al)."
>
>Dahm refers to Dave Dahm, who worked on the B5000/5500, B6x00, and later

He also worked on the B3500.

>systems. He was one of the architects, along with Roy Guck, of DMSII.
>Creech refers to Bobby Creech, who also worked on those systems and
>ended up running the Small Systems operation.

Bobby finished his time managing Pasadena Engineering in the 80's. I've got the
video of his retirement party around here somewhere, planning on uploading
to the slurn45 channel on youtube with the other burroughs films (in the
early ones you can see Bobby, Dave, et alia)

[Paul Kimpel]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Not just Unisys/Burroughs history
From: curt timmerman <rand...@gmail.com>
To:

Well, there were over 20 people that participated in the oral history
meeting, so the "et al" was entirely appropriate.
--
Paul

[Paul Kimpel]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Not just Unisys/Burroughs history

From: sc...@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal)
To:
Date: 7/2/2018 7:29 AM

> Paul Kimpel <paul....@digm.com> writes:
>> On 6/25/2018 11:27 AM, curt timmerman wrote:
>>> As an aside, under the ITEM DESCRIPTION, the very last name looks to me link geek humor. :-)
>>
>> You mean?
>>
>> "discussion on the B 5000 in retrospect (Barton, Berce, Collins,
>> Creech, Dahm et al)."
>>
>> Dahm refers to Dave Dahm, who worked on the B5000/5500, B6x00, and later
>
> He also worked on the B3500.

And the Shell Assembler for the Datatron 205, BALGOL for the Burroughs
220, DMSQL, the OLE DB Provider for ClearPath MCP DMSII, and probably a
whole bunch more things I don't even know about.

[jhha...@earthlink.net]

Idon'tknowwhymyattempttoreplydoesn'trespondtothespacebarbutyoumightalsoenjoy
theopenchannelcolumninComputermagazineforMay1977page96.

[WQGraham]

Wasn't Dave Dahm responsible for the adoption of the "slice" compiler for Pascal and COBOL85?

I seem to remember Don Gregory standing up and trashing the performance of the Pascal compiler during one CUBE.