> On Jan 21, 2016, at 10:58 AM, Ethan Dicks <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> On Wed, Jan 20, 2016 at 8:37 PM, Johnny Billquist <[email protected]> wrote:
>> ODT actually stands for On-line Debugging Tool, not Online Debugging
>> Technique.
>
> I recall Octal Debugging Technique. Anyone else remember that definition?
Things get interesting...
The name ODT was derived from the TOPS-10 debugger DDT -- an obvious name in
that era for something that gets rid of bugs, but officially it stood for
"Dynamic Debugging Technique".
ODT was much simpler, not offering symbolic debugging for one thing. So it got
a different name, and since its I/O was pretty much just octal numbers,
replacing "dynamic" by "octal" made sense.
Then again, the DOS V9 manual says it's "On-line debugging technique". So do
several RT11 manuals. Hm. Now I'm puzzled. I clearly remember "octal" and
don't remember ever seeing "on-line". And sure enough, the header of the
source code for RSTS "monitor ODT" (the kernel debugger) says "Octal debugging
tool".
So it looks like DEC wasn't consistent. On-line in some places, octal in
others, and "technique" in the official documents I remember but "tool" at
least internally (a more obvious word to use, certainly).
paul
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