samlb@well.UUCP (Samuel B. Bassett) (10/01/86)
USUS ( UCSD p-System Users' Society )
Fall Conference & Meeting
Greenwich, Connecticut
November 1-3, 1986
USUS is pleased to announce that our Fall Conference & Meeting will be
held at the Showboat Inn in Greenwich, Connecticut. The meeting will start
on the morning of Saturday, November 1, 1986 and run through 5:00 PM on
Monday, November 3, 1986.
With the resurgence of interest in the Power System (the newly renamed
p-System) and the UCSD Pascal aftermarket, the just-released Version IV
Modula-2 compiler and new Power System implementations for the Apple //GS
and other new machines, the impending release of the 32-bit p-machine and
other language compilers, this meeting should provide an excellent forum to
learn about all the new things happening in our corner of the world.
As always, we expect to have experts attending in the areas of appli-
cation development, Pascal, Modula-2, communications, database, word
processing and specific hardware such as Apple //, IBM PC, Sage/Stride and
TI-99/4. Numerous workshops and presentations will be held on a wide range
of topics.
The theme of the Fall meeting is Modula-2. Some of the theme-related
sessions include:
o Dr. Charles Zahn on "Modula-2: An Historical Perspective":
The history of Modula-2 will be traced from Algol-W, Pascal and
Pascal and the structured programming ideas of Dijkstra and Hoare.
Modula will be contrasted with Pascal it's improvements will be
highlighted. Support for modularity, concurrency and the needs of
system programmers will be discussed. Dr. Zahn will present the view
that Modula-2 stands roughly between C and Ada, avoiding the problems
of each.
Dr. Charles ("Carroll") Zahn has been in the computing field for 25
years as researcher, teacher and corporate consultant at such
institutions as Stanford University, CERN in Geneva, Yourdon and
Mobil. He is currently at Pace University where he was recently chair
of the Computer Science Department. Dr. Zahn has a longstanding
interest in language design and compilers, especially those that
support the best programming methods. He was an early (1972) and
strong supporter of Pascal, with no regrets.
o Dr. Jerry Weiss on "Implementing Modula-2 on the Version IV p-machine":
Issues relating to the porting of the Volition Modula-2 compiler to
Version IV Power System will be discussed. Dr. Weiss will talk about
how differences between the Version II and Version IV p-machines
affected the code generated by the Modula-2 compiler. Also to be
discussed is the more general issue of a pseudo-machine designed for
one specific language adapting to support for other languages.
Dr. Gerald Weiss is a native of Brooklyn, NY. He received his Ph.D.
from NU in the areas of programming languages and compilers. Dr.
Weiss is currently Assistant Professor of Computer Science at
Brooklyn College and Director of Special Projects at Pecan Software
Systems. He ported the Volition Modula-2 compiler to Version IV Power
System.
o Jeff Savit on "Experiences with Modula-2 as a Portable Systems Language":
Modula-2 is a high-level systems language capable of "low-level"
machine control. Mr. Savit discusses aspects of the language and
common coding practices that assist or impede portability of
programs. The talk is based on experiences with a number of Modula-2
implementations and on his work porting Modula-2 to IBM's 370 series
computers.
Jeffrey Savit is President and owner of Savvy Computing, Inc., a
software consulting firm specializing in mainframe systems software,
education and performance analysis. He is the author of a Modula-2
compiler for the IBM 370 mainframe. He is also a member of the ACM,
IEEE, and the Modula-2 User's Association (MODUS), and is on the
Board of Directors of the Metropolitan VM User Association (VMMUA).
He has presented sessions at meetings of MODUS, VMMUA and SHARE and
was a member of a software delegation to China. Mr. Savit holds an
MS degree from Cornell University.
Some of the other sessions include:
o Carl Helmers on "Machine Independent UCSD Experience":
This will be an anecdotal talk about the history and future of
machine independent approaches to computer software. The talk will be
light on technical detail, emphasizing philosophy and the "oughts" of
computer software, from one man's point of view.
Carl Helmers is President and owner of North American Tech-
nology,Inc., a firm in Peterborough, New Hampshire which publishes
Sensors magazine, Bar Code News magazine, and Robotics Engineering
magazine, as well as related directories. As founding editor of Byte
magazine, he was responsible for the early fame of the UCSD system
starting in the late 70's.
o "A Template Text Generator for PDBS":
A more technical talk about a particular technique related to the Tom
Swan Pascal database system. The purpose is to present a short
program which allows a PDBS file's fields to be merged with a master
text template yielding specific instantiation of the values in those
fields substituted into the template.
o Eli Willner on "Late News out of Pecan":
Eli will discuss recent and forthcoming Pecan technical and marketing
developments.
Eli Willner is Vice President for Research and Development at Pecan
Software Systems, Inc.
o Two question-and-answer sessions will be held:
The Major Vendor Panel is an opportunity to ask major product vendors
questions about their products and future plans.
The Expert Users' Panel consists of people well-versed in the Power
System, UCSD Pascal, Modula-2 and related hardware. These people will
tackle your questions about programming and applications development.
The Special Interest Groups (SIGs) will be holding meetings; there are
SIGs for most major hardware, as well as for areas such as Advanced System
Editor (ASE), Modula-2, communications, applications development, News-
letter and the software library. Attendees often find that the opportunity
to exchange information at these meetings (and in the hallways) can be
extremely rewarding and can alone justify the time and expense of attending
the meeting.
For new and intermediate users talks will be given on
o An Introduction to Modula-2
o An Introduction to UCSD Pascal
o An Introduction to the Power System
o Intermediate Topics in UCSD Pascal
LOCATION
The meeting will be held at the Showboat Inn which is located at 500
Steamboat Road in Greenwich, CT., one block from Exit #3 on the Connecticut
Turnpike (I-95) and one block from the Penn Central Railroad. It is only
20 minutes away from New York City via the Connecticut and New York State
Thruway, which is just one block from the hotel.
TRANSPORTATION
If you are flying, use either JFK or LaGuardia airports. Door to door
transportation between the hotel and either airport is provided by
"Connecticut Limousine". Taxis and car rentals are also available.
HOTEL RESERVATIONS
USUS has arranged special room rates of $67.50 for a single facing
land and $75.00 for a single on the harbor ($75.00 for a double facing land
and $82.50 for a double on the harbor).
You may reserve a room by calling the Showboat Inn directly at:
(800)243-8511
(203)661-9800
You cannot reserve a room through USUS, and registering for the
meeting does not assure you of a room reservation. To get the special
rate, identify yourself as affiliated with USUS. Please make your
reservations early as the special rate is available only for a limited
number of rooms. If you register by mail, make sure you identify yourself
as being with USUS, the UCSD Pascal User's Society. Send Mail reservations
to:
The Showboat Inn
Reservations Dept.
500 Steamboat Road
Greenwich, CT. 06830
MEETING REGISTRATION DETAILS
Registration for the entire three day conference is $25.00 in advance,
$35.00 at the door. There are also a number of special registration rates
as follows:
3-day registration: $20.00 students (advance or a the door)
1-day registration: $18.00 regular (advance or at the door)
$10.00 student (advance or at the door)
Students must present a current college or high school ID to obtain
the reduced registration fees. Table space is also available in the demo
room at $50.00 per 3x6' table.
A letter asking for registration, along with a check made out to USUS,
Inc., must be received by the USUS staffer at P.O Box 242, Kensington Sta.,
Brooklyn NY 11218 no later than October, 25, 1986 to obtain the reduced
registration fee. The letter must include your name and work or home
address so that we can mail you a confirmation of your registration.
Please also mention where you saw this notice.
Please note that you must make hotel room reservations directly with
the Showboat Inn. Registering for the meeting does not reserve a room for
you at the hotel, nor does it guarantee availability of a room.
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Sam'l Bassett, Self-Employed Writer -- My words & ideas are my own!
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