Comments for Dusty Decks

Comment on SDC: Q-32 Lisp, Lisp 2, and three more; Lisp 1.5 Primer by Paul McJones

Paul McJones — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 16:44:18 +0000

Catherine,

At least a few people are looking at the old LISP code, and the old FORTRAN code on a parallel web site, because they have succeeded in getting it running on simulators for the original IBM 704/709/7090 computers. In the case of LISP, this required using OCR and careful hand-checking, because no machine readable version was available.

I think this is wonderful, but it is not the only justification for such preservation work. I hope in 500 years, when people look back to the invention of computers, they will be able to study some of the actual source code for the earliest systems and application software. So I am heartened to see the work of others around the world doing similar work. I’d like to encourage you to keep up your excellent work documenting APL’s history.

Comment on SDC: Q-32 Lisp, Lisp 2, and three more; Lisp 1.5 Primer by Catherine Lathwell

Catherine Lathwell — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 12:36:18 +0000

Are people looking at the old LISP code?

Just last night I was looking at an assembly listing of APL’s shared variable processor dated May 1, 1972. I was looking for inspiration because I’m trying to find a way to explain how different things are today. It also has my father’s hand written notes and corrections, so it is special to me. I’m curious to know how many people look at these old things?

Comment on ALGOL by Marcel van der Veer

Marcel van der Veer — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 10:50:54 +0000

Algol 68 Genie is in continuous development. Many are using it to run either vintage programs or new code. If someone thinks it contains a “critical error”, please report it to me so it can be corrected. The quality of open source software depends on useful feedback of its users.

Thank you,
Marcel

Comment on ALGOL by andrey (c) adtrefer

andrey (c) adtrefer — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 19:40:26 +0000

Old compilers must died. Try to make new compiler for Algol family. Algol 68 genie has critical errors, so you have chance to make good compiler.

Comment on ALGOL by Paul McJones

Paul McJones — Tue, 18 May 2010 02:53:35 +0000

John,

I’m especially interested in old implementations. For completeness, I’ll probably add GNU Algol/Marst and the NASE Algol 60 interpreter. Thanks very much for mentioning them.

Paul

Comment on ALGOL by John Cowan

John Cowan — Tue, 18 May 2010 02:28:45 +0000

Are you only interested in implementations for old computers? GNU Algol, otherwise called Marst, is a full implementation of Algol 60 (the modified report) that translates it into C, and there is the NASE Algol 60 interpreter as well.

Comment on Elements of Programming by Paul McJones

Paul McJones — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:54:36 +0000

Gene,

You are of course correct. In the book, we introduce the notion of a partial model of a theory, such as integers of a given word size.

Paul

Comment on Elements of Programming by Eugene Miya

Eugene Miya — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:44:51 +0000

Actually, floating point addition in computers isn’t associative. Algebraically it is associative, but the results of each addition will be dependent on the size and sign of the numbers being added. It’s associative on integers only for the range of integers on a given memory word size these days

Comment on Historic FORTRAN documents online by Hal Smith

Hal Smith — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 21:19:53 +0000

Paul, you might check with the University of Toronto. I remember running a Fortran II compiler “UTO Fortran” (I think it was) on the paper tape driven IBM 1620 at the University of the South, Sewanee, TN, in the fall 1968 through fall 1970.

Comment on Dave Pitts is making progress running Fortran II by Paul McJones

Paul McJones — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 15:27:43 +0000

Bob,

The best answer is probably to install GNU Fortran, and use its g77 compiler, which can handle Fortran IV as well as Fortran 77 source programs. GNU Fortran is part of the GNU Compiler Collection, including C, C++, and various other languages. One way to install it on a Windows PC is as part of the free Cygwin package (see http://www.cygwin.com/). According to this page, g77 is no longer being maintained with the newest versions of the GNU Compiler Collection, so you may need to do some looking to find an older version: http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/GFortranG77 .

Paul

Comment on Dave Pitts is making progress running Fortran II by Bob T.

Bob T. — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 06:09:53 +0000

I have just written a program in FORTRAN IV in order to solve an interesting math problem which was given to me by a fellow employee.

But I have not the slightest idea how I can run the program. Any ideas?

It is about thirty lines log.

I have a few old Radio Shack Computers in my cellar and will get them out to see if I might run the program on them.

Comment on BBC Radio observes Fortran’s 50th birthday by Derek Mahar

Derek Mahar — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 01:33:33 +0000

Episode download site is actually http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/podcasts/digitalp/ and the episode itself is available for download at http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/worldservice/digitalp/digitalp_20071218-1232.mp3.

Comment on Historic software at bitsavers.org by tom morrison

tom morrison — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 21:29:44 +0000

I worked on the Navy Univac 1219B computer and the shipboard equipment. I was fascinated at the manual for it I found on Bitsavers. What a wonderful thing you are doing. So many now just change cards for repair and have never seen an actual register. Can you imagine operational stepping thru a few instructions and watching the result appear in the accumulator register (upper). How can I help?

Comment on Daniel N. Leeson by Eileen Seaboldt

Eileen Seaboldt — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 21:11:40 +0000

I worked with Roy Nutt on a special task force project for IBM in the early 1960’s. I was just a young married woman at the time, but Roy promised me that if I bought CSC stock when it went public, I would not be sorry. Unfortunately, at the time we were building a home and were only able to buy a couple of shares. But we have held onto those shares and as he promised, never been sorry. He was one of the nicest people I ever encountered in the business world.

Comment on C++ Historical Sources Archive by Paul McJones

Paul McJones — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 04:47:54 +0000

Good suggestion! Try http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/c_plus_plus/cfront/release_3.0.3/source/cfront_3_0_3.tgz
(note among other things I renamed release_3.03 to release_3.0.3, to match the actual distribution directory).

Comment on C++ Historical Sources Archive by elife

elife — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 03:42:16 +0000

Is there a tar ball for Cfront-3.03 for easy download? Thanks a lot!

Comment on IBM 7094 Emulator now runs Fortran IV compiler by Richard Pessolano

Richard Pessolano — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 21:07:29 +0000

I have reel to reel tape with engineering programs from a time share (GE)
use on Mark III system. Programs are in Basic,FIV,PFN,and ALGOL.
The tape was made by GE in 1979. I am interested in getting these programs copied, printed out, and converted to Fortran 77 or better for use on PC. Printout format was 132 char. I have printouts of some of the programs. Can you advise me of someone who can help?
Can the IBM 7094 Emulater help?

Please advise

Comment on Remembering John Backus by Eric Norman

Eric Norman — Fri, 25 May 2007 23:42:41 +0000

What a small world! I was a real good buddy of John WIlliams when he was a graduate student here at Wisconsin. I also wrote a paper in the mid-80’s about the functional programming (FP) notation of John Backus. The paper is TR636 at http://www.cs.wisc.edu/techreports/viewyear.php?year=1986

P.S, Paul. I had no problem negotiating the CalTrain – AmTrak connection. Thanks again for your help.

Comment on Remembering John Backus by George

George — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 12:38:48 +0000

Really is a kick to put the names of favorite old tools together with the names of their makers. Thanks

Comment on Remembering John Backus by Dan Rabin

Dan Rabin — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 16:13:51 +0000

Paul -

Many thanks for your extensive reminiscence. One of the joys of working in a young field such as programming languages is having one’s lifetime overlap with those of its great founders; one of the sorrows is watching them pass from among us.

The closest I ever got to meeting John Backus was giving an informal talk to John Williams, Ed Wimmers, and Alex Aiken in what had been, before his then-recent retirement, Backus’s office at IBM Almaden. The subject of the talk was my theoretical Ph.D. research on integrating assignment statements into functional languages. I learned from your reminiscence that this topic would have been of interest to John Backus.