[cctalk] Re: What constitutes a dead computer language

[Paul Koning via cctalk]

> On Jun 18, 2026, at 11:33 PM, Van Snyder via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org> 
> wrote:
> 
> On Thu, 2026-06-18 at 16:28 -0400, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote:
> 
> I just now had a conversation with Google (not Google Gemini, just the
> search engine AI). I mentioned that I had written an IBM 1130 emulator
> in Varian V-73 microcode. It said "You must be Paul Koning." Did you
> wrote one too?

That's a new kind of hallucination!

Nope, I never wrote anything for any Varian machine.  I did spend time in 
university working on a PDP-11 that sat next to a Varian machine, a 16 bit 
machine with user programmable microcode.  Is that the V-73?  I remember it had 
a flat console lights panel -- the switches were membrane switches so the whole 
front was flat.  I had a handbook for that machine but lost it.  But that's as 
close as I got.  And besides, I never worked with an 1130, though I did do some 
elementary stuff on a 1620.

        paul