Thanks for the very interesting info! I have not come across this machine or software and did not know anything about it.
On Thu, 18 Feb 2016 21:16:32 -0500 Davis Johnson <[email protected]> wrote: > I'm pretty sure the resemblance was intentional so as to be an easier > sell to customers familiar with 360 assembler. > > There was a rumor that they had originally hoped to sell low-cost > training machines to schools when real computers were expensive. > > There is some architectural resemblance if you throw out most of the > address modes, base registers, have fewer condition code bits... You end > up with 16 two's complement registers, uniform size 8-bit op codes, RX, > RR, and RI addressing modes (with a few variants). > > A 16 bit quantity on the 16 bit machines was always, from the beginning, > a "HALF WORD". > > The assembler, "CAL" (Common Assembly Language) would assemble 16 or 32 > bit source. > > With care it was possible to write source code that could be assembled > to either 16 or 32 bit object. Don's example uses some of the features, > A(...) specifies an "address length" constant, 16 or 32 bit as > appropriate. There was a whole set of opcode mnemonics that would > assemble appropriately depending on the target. The BASIC interpreter > was a key example, and was actually distributed in source form. I'd love > to find a copy. > > If you were really careful you could create a binary that would actually > run on 16 or 32 bit machines without modification. Some of the hardware > diagnostics are this way. Look for COMMON in the diagnostic title. > > For a 32 bit target a different kind of careful would let you write > position independent code. > > On 02/16/2016 05:16 AM, [email protected] wrote: > > Fascinating and very similar in syntax to the assembler for IBM OS/360 > > and later. Does anybody know the history behind this? > > > > On Mon, 15 Feb 2016 13:58:26 -0500 (EST) > > [email protected] (Don Stalkowski) wrote: > > > >> *L EDIT32 > >> TSKID = EDIT32 > >> *ST > >> *13:19:38 EDIT32:PERKIN-ELMER OS/32 EDIT 03-145 R04-01 > >> *EDIT32>GET HELLO.CAL > >> *EDIT32>T 1-12 > >> *13:19:48 EDIT32: 1 SVC 1,SAY > >> *13:19:48 EDIT32: 2 SVC 3,0 > >> *13:19:48 EDIT32: 3 ALIGN ADC > >> *13:19:48 EDIT32: 4 SAY DB X'28' > >> *13:19:48 EDIT32: 5 DB X'00' > >> *13:19:48 EDIT32: 6 DS 2 > >> *13:19:48 EDIT32: 7 DC A(SAY1) > >> *13:19:48 EDIT32: 8 DC A(SAY2) > >> *13:19:48 EDIT32: 9 DAS 2 > >> *13:19:48 EDIT32: 10 SAY1 DC C'HELLO WORLD ' > >> *13:19:48 EDIT32: 11 SAY2 EQU *-1 > >> *13:19:48 EDIT32: 12 END > >> *EDIT32>END > > _______________________________________________ > > Simh mailing list > > [email protected] > > http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Simh mailing list > [email protected] > http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh _______________________________________________ Simh mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh
