mwm@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Mike (Don't have strength to leave) Meyer) (10/27/86)
The topic comes up again, so... In article <989@tekigm.UUCP> phils@tekigm.UUCP (Phil Staub) writes: >I can't stand it any more! All this talk about BCPL, and the only thing you >find in the Amiga literature is references to bits and pieces about the >tip of the iceberg indicating the BCPL roots of AmigaDOS. Three questions: > >1. Why was so much of AmigaDOS written in BCPL? Because AmigaDOS started life as a TRIPOS port. TRIPOS is an OS written in BCPL about the time that Unix was turning multi-tasking. See references below. Somebody at C/A will have to tell us how much of AmigaDOS is still TRIPOS, and whether AmigaDOS 2.0 will have any TRIPOS in it. >2. How does one go about programming in BCPL on the Amiga. >If it is with some stuff the developers got, but we ordinary users don't >have access to, is there any plan to make a BCPL programming package >available to the general user? Not that I know of. There were some rumors of a BCPL compiler being made available for AmigaDOS, but as far as I can tell, nothing ever came of it. I WANT ONE. >3. Where do you find some reference material on BCPL, since it's not one of >the current "in" languages? The "bible" is, of course, R&W-S :-). See references below. References: For TRIPOS: Richards, et. al. - "TRIPOS - A portble Operating System for Mini-Computers," Software P&E VOl 9, 513-526 (1979). For BCPL: Richards - "BCPL - A tool compiler writing and systems programming," Proceedings of the Spring Joint Computer Conference, 557-566 (1969). Richards and Whitby-Strevens - "BCPL - The Language and its Compiler," Cambridge University Press, 1979. Matters of opinion: Note: The following is OPINION. If you're not interested in my opinions, stop reading now. net.micro.amiga went through a spat of Unix/AmigaDOS/OS-9 wars early in it's life. Let's not repaet them. To help that cause, I *WILL NOT* respond to ANYTHING posted to the net about these opinions. You can reach me by e-mail at the addresses below. TRIPOS, as an OS, is superior to Unix. It had features from the 70's that the Berkeley CSRG is just now starting to put into 4BSD. BCPL is C without the training wheels :-). There is only one type (word), and no type checking at all. It is perfectly valid to write: MyFunc := MyFunc + 16 MyFunc(MyArg) And yes, I've seen this in production code. C's training wheels are a major step forward from BCPL. Unfortunately, some important features got dropped from the language when the training wheels got added. <mike mwm@berkeley.edu (ARPANet) ucbvax!mwm (UUCP)
eric@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU (Eric Lavitsky) (10/27/86)
Metacomco (authors of AmigaDOS) claim to be coming out with a BCPL
compiler, or already have one available. They can be reached at
5353 #E Scotts Valley Dr.
Scotts Valley, CA 95066
(CA) 800-GET-META
(US) 800-AKA-META
I am in no way associated with Metacomco - just providing the
information.
Eric
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