On Thu, Oct 18, 2001 at 07:47:23PM +0800, Pablo Manalastas wrote:
> Do you know anyone still actively programming in assembly language
> for National Semiconductor 8900, or General Instrument 1600, or Nova
> 9440, or Zilog z8000, or even Apple 6502?
> 

Some of these microprocessors, or their descendants, have found a new
life in embedded systems design however.  The modern 32-bit
microprocessor is huge overkill for the vast majority of embedded
systems projects.  The Motorola 68xx series of embedded microcontrollers
is a lineal descendant of the 6502 that used to be in the old Apple II
and C-64 (which is why programming the M68HC11 felt like coming home for
me...).

Doesn't quite invalidate the argument though. :)

> Now compare this to the longevity of most high-level programming
> languages.  Fortran became popular in the early 1960s, and it is
> still being used for engineering computations!

Fortran was also the first real high-level language (not counting Zuse's
Plankalkul though...) :)

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