ck@voa3.VOA.GOV (Chris Kern) (01/31/91)
In article <1991Jan30.014342.12733@iecc.cambridge.ma.us> johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us (John R. Levine) notes that for the GE-635 . . . >There were two main operating systems, GECOS or GCOS, and DTSS. . . . >DTSS was written at Dartmouth, where they implemented >zillions of languages -- everyone knows about Basic (which was a real >compiler, and generated quite respectable code so quickly that nobody bothered >to save object code) . . . DTSS BASIC was indeed compiled, but the BASIC programming environment in many respects seemed like an interpreter from the user's perspective. Recompilation was not an apparent discrete step. It took place transparently, and virtually instantaneously, when you "ran" the BASIC program. At least in the early releases of DTSS BASIC (mid 1960s; this was at the dawn of time-shared interactive computing), I'm not sure there even was a way to save the object code. This probably belongs in alt.folklore.computers, which is where I would redirect except that we don't receive the alt groups. -- Chris Kern ck@voa3.voa.gov ...uunet!voa3!ck +1 202-619-2020