eugene@pioneer.arpa (Eugene N. Miya) (06/10/88)
I've never worked on MCP, but a friend headed their Large Systems
Language group in Pasadena. The language isn't quite ALGOL, it's SPL.
My observations come from the formerly Univac side. That world is
populated by EXEC*8 or EXEC*1100 depending when you learned it.
Now I know the lineage of NOS, COS (Cray Operating System) and CTSS
(Cray Time Sharing System (I know of 3 CTSSes)). It's that trail
of engineers who migrated with Seymour. EXEC*8 fans are also
diehard in their beliefs that they live in the perfect world.
An observation by an old Group Supervisor (I came from an IBM background
at the time, he didn't) was that the interactive environment on EXEC*8
was initially so advanced 1960s compared to IBM, that EXEC was only
lapped by other operating systems. All those fun @ commands.
Best thing since sliced bread (EXEC*1100).
65K word address space limitation [at the time], then 262Kw.
If you know EXEC*8 you won't have too much difficulty learning COS.
Univac published that ad in Scientific American: "User friendliness
wastes too many machine cycles (about late 70s early 80s)."
No high level languages for this OS, it's written in assembly language
like all "real" operating systems. Naw, I have to stop, this
topic is getting to me. Pity all those students attending schools
which don't use Unix or are locked into certain H/W and S/W (and don't
know about nets...).
Another gross generalization from
--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov
resident cynic at the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
"Mailers?! HA!", "If my mail does not reach you, please accept my apology."
{uunet,hplabs,ncar,ihnp4,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene
"Send mail, avoid follow-ups. If enough, I'll summarize."mash@mips.COM (John Mashey) (06/10/88)
In article <10089@ames.arc.nasa.gov> eugene@pioneer.UUCP (Eugene N. Miya) writes: >I've never worked on MCP, but a friend headed their Large Systems >Language group in Pasadena. The language isn't quite ALGOL, it's SPL. ALGOL = what applications were written in, along with COBOL. DC ALGOL = Data Communications Extended ALGOL = extended version used to build message control systems for datacomm. ESPOL = what the MCP was written in; I think it stood for Executive System procedure Oriented Language. I never worked on it either, although I've looked at MCP listings in ESPOL. -- -john mashey DISCLAIMER: <generic disclaimer, I speak for me only, etc> UUCP: {ames,decwrl,prls,pyramid}!mips!mash OR mash@mips.com DDD: 408-991-0253 or 408-720-1700, x253 USPS: MIPS Computer Systems, 930 E. Arques, Sunnyvale, CA 94086
stevew@nsc.nsc.com (Steve Wilson) (06/11/88)
In article <2336@winchester.mips.COM> mash@winchester.UUCP (John Mashey) writes: >In article <10089@ames.arc.nasa.gov> eugene@pioneer.UUCP (Eugene N. Miya) writes: >>I've never worked on MCP, but a friend headed their Large Systems >>Language group in Pasadena. The language isn't quite ALGOL, it's SPL. > >ALGOL = what applications were written in, along with COBOL. >DC ALGOL = Data Communications Extended ALGOL = extended version used to >build message control systems for datacomm. >ESPOL = what the MCP was written in; I think it stood for >Executive System procedure Oriented Language. > >I never worked on it either, although I've looked at MCP listings in ESPOL. >-- >-john mashey DISCLAIMER: <generic disclaimer, I speak for me only, etc> LARGE systems is based in Mission Veijo, while medium systems (B2000-B4000) was based in Pasadena. I'm not sure that anyone at Pasadena knows how to speak ALGOL, only COBOL spoken there(I'm sure I just got some of my now X-friends pissed at me...) Steve Wilson National Semiconductor [Universal disclaimer Goes here!]
dorourke@polyslo.UUCP (David O'Rourke) (06/11/88)
In article <2336@winchester.mips.COM> mash@winchester.UUCP (John Mashey) writes: >ESPOL = what the MCP was written in; I think it stood for MCP is now written in something called NEWP, it another dialect of Algol and has been modified so much that it no longer resembles Algol anymore. -- David M. O'Rourke Disclaimer: I don't represent the school. All opinions are mine!
jml@ivory.SanDiego.NCR.COM (Michael Lodman) (06/14/88)
In article <10089@ames.arc.nasa.gov> eugene@pioneer.UUCP (Eugene N. Miya) writes: >I've never worked on MCP, but a friend headed their Large Systems >Language group in Pasadena. The language isn't quite ALGOL, it's SPL. The languages we used at Pasadena were BPL (Burroughs Programming Language), a real beast of a language, and SDL (System Development Language), a nice language that seemed to be used primarily on the older B1900 etc series whose software group used to be in Santa Barbara. There isn't much at the Pasadena facility any more but a few engineers. -- Michael Lodman (619) 485-3335 Advanced Development NCR Corporation E&M San Diego mike.lodman@ivory.SanDiego.NCR.COM {sdcsvax,cbatt,dcdwest,nosc.ARPA,ihnp4}!ncr-sd!ivory!mike When you die, if you've been very, very good, you'll go to ... Montana.
alanm@dvlmarv.UUCP (Alan Matsuoka) (06/18/88)
In article <2336@winchester.mips.COM> mash@winchester.UUCP (John Mashey) writes: >In article <10089@ames.arc.nasa.gov> eugene@pioneer.UUCP (Eugene N. Miya) writes: >>I've never worked on MCP, but a friend headed their Large Systems >>Language group in Pasadena. The language isn't quite ALGOL, it's SPL. > >ALGOL = what applications were written in, along with COBOL. >DC ALGOL = Data Communications Extended ALGOL = extended version used to >build message control systems for datacomm. >ESPOL = what the MCP was written in; I think it stood for >Executive System procedure Oriented Language. Back in school, we used to refer to ESPOL as the Extra Super Powerful Language All kidding aside, a friend of mine at Unisys told me that MCP was rewritten in a language called NEWP (or something like that). There was also a DM ALGOL and a DM COBOL as I can recall (DM for data manipulation ). I've used DM COBOL ( way back when ) but I don't remember too much about it aside from the fact that you had all of the same access to the System Intrinsics with Algol and Cobol. It's pretty weird being able to fork off tasks, independent jobs and coroutines in Cobol. DC Algol was/is used to build the MCS on the mainframe side but a language called NDL ( Network Definition Language - Again Algol60 like ) was used for programming the DCP's. And yes, their form of JCL called WFL ( pronounced wuffle - for Work Flow Language ) was also kind of neat (also Algol-like). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alan Matsuoka, Develcon Electronics, 515 Consumers Road, Suite 500 Willowdale, ON Canada M2J 4Z2 uucp: {decvax,ihnp4,utai,uunet}!watmath!dvlmarv!alanm phone: (416) 495-8666 {utai,mnetor}!lsuc!dvlmarv!alanm sask!zaphod!dvlmarv!alanm