On 11/18/08 12:56 PM, "Jeff Savit" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> Very heavy, as well. Takes two *strong* people to move one. Takes a serious >> cart to move one very far. > So, be certain of its placement when you put it in the attractive, > modern livingroom of the future! Right next to the plastic bowl chairs (thank you, Saarinen!) >>>> Anyhow, language based processors seem to be a seductive design pattern >>>> that hasn't really gained momentum for general purpose computing. >> Don't forget the Xerox D-machines and the Symbolics, and the LMI machines as >> well. Symbolics still has a lot of applications in DOD space, and there are >> still hundreds of D-machines and D-machine descendants in the space program. > I didn't know the Dorado and Dolphin had p-code like instruction sets; > I thought they were conventional instruction set architectures along the > lines of a Nova.. I would be amazed if D-* were still in use after 30+ > years. The real innovation there was in the WYSIWYG graphical view it > provided - a breathtaking leap forward. No, the D-machines had several sets of loadable language-specific pseudoinstruction sets (Lisp, Prolog were commercially available, and there were a few special purpose language sets only used inside Xerox and Stanford AI). The core processor had a very p-System like virtual microcode gadget that you could do neat things with. I have a fairly complete set of native Lisp microcode worlds for my Dandetiger, but I don't think my copy of the native Prolog world is still usable. 8-( (The CHAOSnet implementation in Prolog was a genuinely inspiring piece of work -- a complete networking implementation written only in logical assertions. Not for the ordinary mortal to attempt, that's for certain. ) Re: D-machines still in use -- Goddard SFC still has about 20 that I know of. JSC has a bunch more, plus some of the 608x systems that are Son-of-D. Most of the shuttle mission checklist documents were developed back in the late 80s/early 90s, and if they change platforms, they'd have to recertify all the docs again, so it's cheaper to keep the D-machines running (over real original Ethernet coax with D connectors and real DEC orange-stripe DELNIs) than recertify. I also know of at least two Symbolics 36x0s still in use in various bits of the DOD, but that's about all I can say about them. >> Many, many hours with both. And p-System FORTRAN, and the p-Writing Tools >> package developed at UCSD, which was a brilliant set of writing assistant >> gadgets for teaching technical writing, and an ancestor of Google Apps by >> marriage. Modula, less time, but contributed a fair amount of doc kvetching >> to the CMS Modula port. >> > You must mean the _other_ Modula-2 port to CMS, not mine. I had Dick > Karpinski to harass me :-) after I presented it at MODUS and USUS. Ah, > memories! If anyone wants my compiler and runtime system I'm sure I can > dig it up. I added libraries to access CP and CMS functions for systems > programming; I even did a VMCF interface. But REXX made that use-case > superfluous. Gee, I didn't know you did one. I was working with one that was done in the Netherlands around 1989 -- I seem to remember Andy Tannenbaum having something to do with it. Probably one of his students or post-docs. If you want, I can put it up for FTP or other downloads -- I'd like to have a look. -- db ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
