Re: Fwd: Re: Architectural diversity - was Re: Pair of Twiggys

2017-03-19 Thread Toby Thain via cctalk 

On 2017-03-17 3:19 PM, Rich Alderson via cctalk wrote:

From: Chuck Guzis
Sent: Friday, March 17, 2017 11:27 AM


On 03/17/2017 11:09 AM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:



and, although we don't know when YOU were playing it, the march had
been around half a century, so was probably playing on the radio to
inspire Backus.  Does that mean that Dan. might be right about it
being the predecessor to FORTRAN?



Valdres March has been around for more than a century--it's at least 113
years old.



So FORTRAN has some catching up to do.



It wasn't until the microcomputer era with BASIC, I think that FORTRAN
wasn't the first HLL to be contemplated for a new architecture.



"I don't know what the language of the year 2000 will look like, but I know
it will be called Fortran."

--Tony Hoare, winner of the 1980 Turing Award,
  in 1982.



Depressingly prescient...

--T

RE: Fwd: Re: Architectural diversity - was Re: Pair of Twiggys

2017-03-19 Thread Rich Alderson via cctalk 
From: Chuck Guzis
Sent: Friday, March 17, 2017 11:27 AM

> On 03/17/2017 11:09 AM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:

>> and, although we don't know when YOU were playing it, the march had
>> been around half a century, so was probably playing on the radio to
>> inspire Backus.  Does that mean that Dan. might be right about it
>> being the predecessor to FORTRAN?

> Valdres March has been around for more than a century--it's at least 113
> years old.

> So FORTRAN has some catching up to do.

> It wasn't until the microcomputer era with BASIC, I think that FORTRAN
> wasn't the first HLL to be contemplated for a new architecture.


"I don't know what the language of the year 2000 will look like, but I know
it will be called Fortran."

--Tony Hoare, winner of the 1980 Turing Award,
  in 1982.

Re: Fwd: Re: Architectural diversity - was Re: Pair of Twiggys

2017-03-17 Thread Chuck Guzis via cctalk 
On 03/17/2017 11:09 AM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:

> and, although we don't know when YOU were playing it, the march had
> been around half a century, so was probably playing on the radio to
> inspire Backus.  Does that mean that Dan. might be right about it
> being the predecessor to FORTRAN?

Valdres March has been around for more than a century--it's at least 113
years old.

So FORTRAN has some catching up to do.

It wasn't until the microcomputer era with BASIC, I think that FORTRAN
wasn't the first HLL to be contemplated for a new architecture.

--Chuck

Re: Fwd: Re: Architectural diversity - was Re: Pair of Twiggys

2017-03-17 Thread Fred Cisin via cctalk 

In response to a question of who provided the Lisa FORTRAN, guy who
insisted that Valtrep was the predecessor of FORTRAN 'course he also
had OS/2 for the PDP-11, and a PROGRAM that could duplicate alignment
disks, . . .

Isn't "Valdtrep" a Norwegian march by Johannes Hanssen?

It's Valdres https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valdres and Valdres
march.

Oh, I know--I was making a joke.  It's a fine march and I've performed
it in conCert bands many times.


and, although we don't know when YOU were playing it, the march had been 
around half a century, so was probably playing on the radio to inspire 
Backus.  Does that mean that Dan. might be right about it being the 
predecessor to FORTRAN?



OB_Trivia: Originally "FORTRAN" was a portmanteau of "FORmula TRANslation".
cf. Lewis Carroll, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/portmanteau
(Q: Why would anybody make a computer language out of a big suitcase?
 A: for portability!)
In 1992?, the revised standard changed the official spelling from FORTRAN 
to Fortran, (Fortran 8X, Fortran 90)
Valtrep came long after FORTRAN, and had no discernable influence on 
Fortran.



--
Grumpy Ol' Fred ci...@xenosoft.com

Re: Fwd: Re: Architectural diversity - was Re: Pair of Twiggys

2017-03-17 Thread Chuck Guzis via cctalk 
On 03/17/2017 10:06 AM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:

> Oh, I know--I was making a joke.  It's a fine march and I've
> performed it in convert bands many times.


Er, make that "concert bands"

--Chuck

Re: Fwd: Re: Architectural diversity - was Re: Pair of Twiggys

2017-03-17 Thread Chuck Guzis via cctalk 
On 03/17/2017 06:46 AM, Torfinn Ingolfsen via cctalk wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 17, 2017 at 4:31 AM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk 
>  wrote:
>> On 03/16/2017 08:19 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> Isn't "Valdtrep" a Norwegian march by Johannes Hanssen?
> 
> It's Valdres https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valdres and Valdres
> march.

Oh, I know--I was making a joke.  It's a fine march and I've performed
it in convert bands many times.

--Chuck

Re: Fwd: Re: Architectural diversity - was Re: Pair of Twiggys

2017-03-17 Thread Torfinn Ingolfsen via cctalk 
On Fri, Mar 17, 2017 at 4:31 AM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk
 wrote:
> On 03/16/2017 08:19 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:
>
>
> Isn't "Valdtrep" a Norwegian march by Johannes Hanssen?

It's Valdres https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valdres
and Valdres march.
-- 
Regards,
Torfinn Ingolfsen

Re: Fwd: Re: Architectural diversity - was Re: Pair of Twiggys

2017-03-16 Thread Chuck Guzis via cctalk 
On 03/16/2017 08:19 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:

> In response to a question of who provided the Lisa FORTRAN, guy who
> insisted that Valtrep was the predecessor of FORTRAN 'course he also
> had OS/2 for the PDP-11, and a PROGRAM that could duplicate alignment
> disks, . . .

Oh jeez, not that again!  I'd hoped that I'd forgotten about him...

Isn't "Valdtrep" a Norwegian march by Johannes Hanssen?

--Chuck

Re: Fwd: Re: Architectural diversity - was Re: Pair of Twiggys

2017-03-16 Thread Chuck Guzis via cctalk 
On 03/16/2017 06:28 PM, ben via cctalk wrote:

> But was FORTRAN that portable? Other than the IBM 1130 I cannot think
> of a small computer that had ample I/O and memory to run and compile
> FORTRAN. All the other 16 bitters seem to more paper tape I/O. I
> suspect 90% of all university computers ended up as IBM 360 systems.
> A few ended up with the VAX, but who knows what they ran.


Oh, dear--time for a history lesson.

1. Even the IBM 650 had a FORTRAN of sorts
2. One thing that was a sales point for the PDP-8 back in the day was
that for about $5K, you could get a computer that would run 4K FORTRAN:

http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/dec/pdp8/software/DEC-08-AFCO-D_4K_FORTRAN.pdf

3. FORTRAN was originally released, IIRC for the IBM 709, and was a
card-only system; versions for the 704, and, as previously mentioned,
the 650.   I've used card-only FORTRANs on the 1620 and 1401.

4. The 8080/Z80 had FORTRAN, and I suspect there was also a FORTRAN for
the 8008 (if APL on the 8008 was possible, surely FORTRAN was).

5. I've never heard of a COBOL for the IBM 650.

--Chuck

Re: Fwd: Re: Architectural diversity - was Re: Pair of Twiggys

2017-03-16 Thread Fred Cisin via cctalk 

Who was it who said, "FORTRAN is more portable than syphilis"


I found it!
I thought Djikstra, but it turned out to be Stan Kelly-Bootle:

"The definition of FORTRAN from the "Devil's DP Dictionary", by
Stan Kelly-Bootle:
"FORTRAN n. [Acronym for FORmula TRANslating system.]
 One of the earliest languages of any real height, level-wise, developed 
out

 of Speedcoding by Backus and Ziller for the IBM/704 in the mid 1950s in
 order to boost the sale of 80-column cards to engineers.
 In spite of regular improvements(including a recent option called
 'STRUCTURE'), it remains popular among engineers but despised elsewhere.
 Many rivals, with the benefit of hindsight, have crossed swords with
 the old workhorse ! Yet FORTRAN gallops on, warts and all, more
 transportable than syphilis, fired by a bottomless pit of working
 subprograms. Lacking the compact power of APL, the intellectually 
satisfying

 elegance of ALGOL 68, the didactic incision of Pascal, and the spurned
 universality of PL/I, FORTRAN survives, nay, FLOURISHES, thanks to a
 superior investmental inertia."

Re: Fwd: Re: Architectural diversity - was Re: Pair of Twiggys

2017-03-16 Thread Fred Cisin via cctalk 

On Thu, 16 Mar 2017, ben via cctalk wrote:

But was FORTRAN that portable?


Who was it who said, "FORTRAN is more portable than syphilis"


Other than the IBM 1130 I cannot think of a small computer
that had ample I/O and memory to run and compile FORTRAN. All the
other 16 bitters seem to more paper tape I/O.
I suspect 90% of all university computers ended up as IBM 360
systems. A few ended up with the VAX, but who knows what they
ran.


1401
1620 (if you count PDQ)

In 1983, I was called in as a long-term substitute to take over teaching a 
Fortran class using IBM PCs with Microsoft/IBM Fortran.

Fwd: Re: Architectural diversity - was Re: Pair of Twiggys

2017-03-16 Thread ben via cctalk 

On 3/16/2017 5:16 PM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote:



From: cctalk [cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] on behalf of Chuck Guzis via 
cctalk [cctalk@classiccmp.org]
Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2017 6:08 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: Architectural diversity - was Re: Pair of Twiggys

On 03/16/2017 02:54 PM, Ethan Dicks via cctalk wrote:

On Thu, Mar 16, 2017 at 5:42 PM, Cameron Kaiser via cctalk
 wrote:

Porting to diverse architectures is still a great way to find
latent bugs.


Too bad people can't be arsed to port merely to diverse *operating
systems*, let alone architectures.


I'm one of the folks that works on LCDproc.  Part of the release
testing I do is to compile it on things that aren't just "yet
another Linux box".  Of all the use-cases, I'm pretty sure that it's
going to work on Debian-flavored things and if that ever breaks, it's
going to be the one thing that gets fixed first.


Sadly (or happily--take your choice), architectures aren't nearly as
diverse as they used to be.  Ones complement, decimal, six-bit characters...

And people who weren't there can't understand why FORTRAN was the
closest thing to a "portable" language...

__

Not even close to COBOL.  :-)

bill



But was FORTRAN that portable?
Other than the IBM 1130 I cannot think of a small computer
that had ample I/O and memory to run and compile FORTRAN. All the
other 16 bitters seem to more paper tape I/O.
I suspect 90% of all university computers ended up as IBM 360
systems. A few ended up with the VAX, but who knows what they
ran.
Ben.