I seem to remember there were a few PDP-11 fans on here...

Fancy a job? :-)

http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcfo...from-GE-Canada

http://goo.gl/177Iv

Darren

On Tue, 18 Jun 2013 19:01:30 +0000, D.M.Chapman wrote:

I seem to remember there were a few PDP-11 fans on here...

Fancy a job? :-)

http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcfo...827-Greetings-
from-GE-Canada

http://goo.gl/177Iv

Some students posted this on my FaceBook group and suggested I could do
it!



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On 18/06/13 20:01, D.M.Chapman wrote:
I seem to remember there were a few PDP-11 fans on here...

Fancy a job? :-)

http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcfo...from-GE-Canada

http://goo.gl/177Iv

Darren

Golly. I used to write C on one of those..


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(in-ep-toc-ra-cy) €“ a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.

In article , Bob Eager
writes
On Tue, 18 Jun 2013 19:01:30 +0000, D.M.Chapman wrote:

I seem to remember there were a few PDP-11 fans on here...

Fancy a job? :-)

http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcfo...827-Greetings-
from-GE-Canada

http://goo.gl/177Iv

Some students posted this on my FaceBook group and suggested I could do
it!

Make sure your 3rd party liability insurance is up to date ;-)
--
fred
it's a ba-na-na . . . .

On Tue, 18 Jun 2013 20:45:20 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

On 18/06/13 20:01, D.M.Chapman wrote:
I seem to remember there were a few PDP-11 fans on here...

Fancy a job? :-)

http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcfo...827-Greetings-
from-GE-Canada

http://goo.gl/177Iv

Darren

Golly. I used to write C on one of those..

C ? Pah! I started on them in assembler, but did hand assembly at times.
Not to mention compilers for a couple of languages...

And I have four PDP-11s right here anyway.



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On Tue, 18 Jun 2013 21:59:50 +0100, Tim Streater wrote:

In article ,
Bob Eager wrote:

On Tue, 18 Jun 2013 20:45:20 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

On 18/06/13 20:01, D.M.Chapman wrote:
I seem to remember there were a few PDP-11 fans on here...

Fancy a job? :-)

http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcfo...ead.php?37827-
Greetings-
from-GE-Canada

http://goo.gl/177Iv

Darren

Golly. I used to write C on one of those..

C ? Pah! I started on them in assembler, but did hand assembly at
times.
Not to mention compilers for a couple of languages...

And I have four PDP-11s right here anyway.

If you're going to write assembler for the PDP-11, then I can recommend
this language:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PL-11

Yup, seen that. Although I can write it really fast anyway!

That was inspired by PL-360, and I designed a similar one for another
architecture - PL-516. The Honeywell 16 series were quite common at the
time.



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Tim Streater wrote:
In article ,
Bob Eager wrote:

On Tue, 18 Jun 2013 20:45:20 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

On 18/06/13 20:01, D.M.Chapman wrote:
I seem to remember there were a few PDP-11 fans on here...

Fancy a job? :-)


http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcfo...827-Greetings-
from-GE-Canada

http://goo.gl/177Iv

Darren

Golly. I used to write C on one of those..

C ? Pah! I started on them in assembler, but did hand assembly at
times. Not to mention compilers for a couple of languages...

And I have four PDP-11s right here anyway.

If you're going to write assembler for the PDP-11, then I can recommend
this language:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PL-11

Mid 70s saw me programming PDP11 with ML/1 studying under its Author
Peter Brown and his wife Heather at University of Kent.
I'll still have my notes - "somewhere"

On Tue, 18 Jun 2013 22:10:01 +0100, Bob Minchin wrote:

Tim Streater wrote:
In article ,
Bob Eager wrote:

On Tue, 18 Jun 2013 20:45:20 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

On 18/06/13 20:01, D.M.Chapman wrote:
I seem to remember there were a few PDP-11 fans on here...

Fancy a job? :-)


http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcfo...ead.php?37827-
Greetings-
from-GE-Canada

http://goo.gl/177Iv

Darren

Golly. I used to write C on one of those..

C ? Pah! I started on them in assembler, but did hand assembly at
times. Not to mention compilers for a couple of languages...

And I have four PDP-11s right here anyway.

If you're going to write assembler for the PDP-11, then I can recommend
this language:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PL-11

Mid 70s saw me programming PDP11 with ML/1 studying under its Author
Peter Brown and his wife Heather at University of Kent.
I'll still have my notes - "somewhere"

Not another one! I didn't know/remember that. As for notes:

http://www.ml1.org.uk

Peter died a few years ago but Heather is retired and living in Devon.



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On 18/06/2013 21:59, Tim Streater wrote:


C ? Pah! I started on them in assembler, but did hand assembly at
times. Not to mention compilers for a couple of languages...

And I have four PDP-11s right here anyway.

If you're going to write assembler for the PDP-11, then I can recommend
this language:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PL-11


PDP-11: luxury. I wrote my first serious code on a PDP-8f. I almost
memorised the RIM loader in the end. And I had a colleague who could
read assembler straight off paper tape.

On Tue, 18 Jun 2013 22:26:31 +0100, newshound wrote:

On 18/06/2013 21:59, Tim Streater wrote:


C ? Pah! I started on them in assembler, but did hand assembly at
times. Not to mention compilers for a couple of languages...

And I have four PDP-11s right here anyway.

If you're going to write assembler for the PDP-11, then I can recommend
this language:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PL-11


PDP-11: luxury. I wrote my first serious code on a PDP-8f. I almost
memorised the RIM loader in the end. And I had a colleague who could
read assembler straight off paper tape.

I built two of these:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?
set=a.1035436761956.2007022.1106561883&type=1&l=b3 636f373c

(readable by everyone even if not a FB user)



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On Tue, 18 Jun 2013 22:18:16 +0100, Tim Streater wrote:

In article ,
Bob Eager wrote:

On Tue, 18 Jun 2013 20:45:20 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

On 18/06/13 20:01, D.M.Chapman wrote:
I seem to remember there were a few PDP-11 fans on here...

Fancy a job? :-)

http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcfo...ead.php?37827-
Greetings-
from-GE-Canada

http://goo.gl/177Iv

Darren

Golly. I used to write C on one of those..

C ? Pah! I started on them in assembler, but did hand assembly at
times.
Not to mention compilers for a couple of languages...

And I have four PDP-11s right here anyway.

Ever do any BCPL?

I used to run the BCPL User Group.

I did compilers for the DECSystem-10, Elliott 4130, PDP-11, VAX, ICL
2900/3900, MS-DOS....also greatly enhanced a Z80 one. Probably some
others.



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I patched a self-compiling compiler into a PDP-11 in 1982.
Once it worked, of course, it just compiled itself. Unless it had a new bug, so I always had several old copies of the compiler.

On Tue, 18 Jun 2013 14:36:37 -0700, Matty F wrote:

I patched a self-compiling compiler into a PDP-11 in 1982.
Once it worked, of course, it just compiled itself. Unless it had a new
bug, so I always had several old copies of the compiler.

This one is in lots of places, but worth reading if you've never seen
it...

http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/200...ennis-ritchie-
a/



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(D.M.Chapman) wrote:

Fancy a job? :-)

http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcfo...from-GE-Canada

Hmm, the nuclear industy's still using those - does that give me a warm
feeling all over or - NO, Torness just went bang, my mistake.

Posted in Sunny Edinburgh. Actually, that's not the Sun...

--
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Email sent to my from-address will be deleted. Instead, please reply
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On Tue, 18 Jun 2013 22:55:52 +0100, Jeremy Nicoll - news posts wrote:

(D.M.Chapman) wrote:

Fancy a job? :-)

http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcfo...827-Greetings-
from-GE-Canada

Hmm, the nuclear industy's still using those - does that give me a warm
feeling all over or - NO, Torness just went bang, my mistake.

Posted in Sunny Edinburgh. Actually, that's not the Sun...

They were pretty reliable. The University of Edinburgh used them as node
processors all over their network. And RJE stations. And frone end
processors for their mainframes.



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Bob Eager wrote:

On Tue, 18 Jun 2013 22:55:52 +0100, Jeremy Nicoll - news posts wrote:

Posted in Sunny Edinburgh. Actually, that's not the Sun...

They were pretty reliable. The University of Edinburgh used them as node
processors all over their network. And RJE stations. And frone end
processors for their mainframes.

Fair enough, but they're still OLD electronic devices...

--
Jeremy C B Nicoll - my opinions are my own.

Email sent to my from-address will be deleted. Instead, please reply
to replacing "aaa" by "284".

On Tue, 18 Jun 2013 23:37:12 +0100, Tim Streater wrote:

In article ,
Bob Eager wrote:

On Tue, 18 Jun 2013 22:18:16 +0100, Tim Streater wrote:

In article ,
Bob Eager wrote:

On Tue, 18 Jun 2013 20:45:20 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

On 18/06/13 20:01, D.M.Chapman wrote:
I seem to remember there were a few PDP-11 fans on here...

Fancy a job? :-)

http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcfo...ead.php?37827-
Greetings-
from-GE-Canada

http://goo.gl/177Iv

Darren

Golly. I used to write C on one of those..

C ? Pah! I started on them in assembler, but did hand assembly at
times.
Not to mention compilers for a couple of languages...

And I have four PDP-11s right here anyway.

Ever do any BCPL?

I used to run the BCPL User Group.

Well I might possibly be hornswoggled. I recall going to a BCPL User
Group meeting at Kent run by "Bob" in about 1983 or so. Martin Richard's
brother was there IIRC. I was working at SLAC at the time, came along
with my nephew Stephen who was a bit green then but went on to found
Eidos.

I joined the BCPL User Group for £5 but then heard nothing more. Were
you "Bob"? If so ICMFP.

Yup, that would have been me! We did send some stuff out using the subs
we got, but it all died a death. The remainder of the funds were donated
to charity.

This 'previous contact' stuff is getting weird.

There's Darren Chapman (current), Daniele Procida, Andy Champ (son I
think), now we have Bob Minchin. And Huge, Jules Richardson...

And I have met Tim Watts, but that was through this group.

I have probably forgotten some other UKC people too. Anyone?
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On Wednesday, June 19, 2013 9:46:42 AM UTC+12, Bob Eager wrote:
On Tue, 18 Jun 2013 14:36:37 -0700, Matty F wrote:



I patched a self-compiling compiler into a PDP-11 in 1982.

Once it worked, of course, it just compiled itself. Unless it had a new

bug, so I always had several old copies of the compiler.



This one is in lots of places, but worth reading if you've never seen

it...



http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/200...nis-ritchie-a/


Thanks, most interesting - a compiler that inserts back-door code when it compiles itself. We had a decompiler, so any backdoor code could be seen. The decompiler was self-aware and refused to decompile itself (so that people couldn't see how it worked).

My compiler was not self-aware, but it did know about all the programs that were allowed to use password fields, and it used to generate different code (a call to a logging routine) for the unauthorised programs that people used to write and leave on people's computers in order to get their login details.

On 18/06/13 22:55, Jeremy Nicoll - news posts wrote:
(D.M.Chapman) wrote:

Fancy a job? :-)

http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcfo...from-GE-Canada
Hmm, the nuclear industy's still using those - does that give me a warm
feeling all over or - NO, Torness just went bang, my mistake.

Posted in Sunny Edinburgh. Actually, that's not the Sun...

At least you know they wont be hacked and cant catch viruses.

And the code has had 40 years of testing..

Id say I am actually happy to hear the above

--
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(in-ep-toc-ra-cy) €“ a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.

On 18/06/13 23:36, Jeremy Nicoll - news posts wrote:
Bob Eager wrote:

On Tue, 18 Jun 2013 22:55:52 +0100, Jeremy Nicoll - news posts wrote:
Posted in Sunny Edinburgh. Actually, that's not the Sun...
They were pretty reliable. The University of Edinburgh used them as node
processors all over their network. And RJE stations. And frone end
processors for their mainframes.
Fair enough, but they're still OLD electronic devices...

That means they wont have cheap korean capacitors in them.

--
Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc-ra-cy) €“ a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.

On Wed, 19 Jun 2013 08:21:06 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

They were pretty reliable. The University of Edinburgh used them
as
node processors all over their network. And RJE stations. And
frone
end processors for their mainframes.

Fair enough, but they're still OLD electronic devices...

Possibly not as OLD as you think, wonkypedia has the PDP-11/93 and
PDP-11/94 introduced in 1990, with production stopping in 1997.

That means they wont have cheap korean capacitors in them.

Or firmware cores produced by perhaps not the most friendly of
foriegn companies. (BT, Huawei (Chinese) and rather a lot of core
telecommunications infrastructure equipment).

--
Cheers
Dave.

On 18/06/2013 22:26, newshound wrote:
On 18/06/2013 21:59, Tim Streater wrote:


C ? Pah! I started on them in assembler, but did hand assembly at
times. Not to mention compilers for a couple of languages...

And I have four PDP-11s right here anyway.

If you're going to write assembler for the PDP-11, then I can recommend
this language:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PL-11


PDP-11: luxury. I wrote my first serious code on a PDP-8f. I almost
memorised the RIM loader in the end. And I had a colleague who could
read assembler straight off paper tape.

I could read punched cards, I never had the use of paper tape so can't.

On 18/06/2013 22:31, Bob Eager wrote:
On Tue, 18 Jun 2013 22:18:16 +0100, Tim Streater wrote:

In article ,
Bob Eager wrote:

On Tue, 18 Jun 2013 20:45:20 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

On 18/06/13 20:01, D.M.Chapman wrote:
I seem to remember there were a few PDP-11 fans on here...

Fancy a job? :-)

http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcfo...ead.php?37827-
Greetings-
from-GE-Canada

http://goo.gl/177Iv

Darren

Golly. I used to write C on one of those..

C ? Pah! I started on them in assembler, but did hand assembly at
times.
Not to mention compilers for a couple of languages...

And I have four PDP-11s right here anyway.

Ever do any BCPL?

I used to run the BCPL User Group.

I did compilers for the DECSystem-10, Elliott 4130, PDP-11, VAX, ICL
2900/3900, MS-DOS....also greatly enhanced a Z80 one. Probably some
others.

ISTR my co-director wrote a BCPL compiler for his Atari 800...
originally in Atari BASIC, and then once working adequately enough he
rewrote it in BCPL of course.


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

The Natural Philosopher wrote:
D.M.Chapman wrote:
I seem to remember there were a few PDP-11 fans on here...

Golly. I used to write C on one of those..

I used to write assembler on those, then wrote an assembler, a
disassembler, an emulator and a small Basic interpreter. Still toying
with it from time to time. Somebody actually emailed me to thank me
for writing the assembler and suggesting a couple of tweeks.

JGH

On Wed, 19 Jun 2013 16:19:40 +0100, John Rumm wrote:

On 18/06/2013 22:31, Bob Eager wrote:
On Tue, 18 Jun 2013 22:18:16 +0100, Tim Streater wrote:

In article ,
Bob Eager wrote:

On Tue, 18 Jun 2013 20:45:20 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

On 18/06/13 20:01, D.M.Chapman wrote:
I seem to remember there were a few PDP-11 fans on here...

Fancy a job? :-)

http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcfo...ead.php?37827-
Greetings-
from-GE-Canada

http://goo.gl/177Iv

Darren

Golly. I used to write C on one of those..

C ? Pah! I started on them in assembler, but did hand assembly at
times.
Not to mention compilers for a couple of languages...

And I have four PDP-11s right here anyway.

Ever do any BCPL?

I used to run the BCPL User Group.

I did compilers for the DECSystem-10, Elliott 4130, PDP-11, VAX, ICL
2900/3900, MS-DOS....also greatly enhanced a Z80 one. Probably some
others.

ISTR my co-director wrote a BCPL compiler for his Atari 800...
originally in Atari BASIC, and then once working adequately enough he
rewrote it in BCPL of course.

The Commodore Amiga had an operating system (AmigaDOS) originally written
in BCPL...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIPOS

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In article ,
Bob Minchin wrote:

Mid 70s saw me programming PDP11 with ML/1 studying under its Author
Peter Brown and his wife Heather at University of Kent.
I'll still have my notes - "somewhere"

Heh, Peter was my project supervisor in my third year in the early 90's.
Modula-3 and C by that time though.

Darren

On 18/06/2013 20:01, D.M.Chapman wrote:
I seem to remember there were a few PDP-11 fans on here...

Fancy a job? :-)

http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcfo...from-GE-Canada

http://goo.gl/177Iv

Darren


Which OS?

I could do RSX-11 or RSTS/E, but I draw the line at RT-11.

(A fantastic computer... I wish they were all so.)

In article ,
Tim Streater wrote:
In article ,

Ever do any BCPL?

IIRC, I did - it's what I used to hack away on my original old Amiga.
AmigaDOS 1 was written in it IIRC

Darren

On Wed, 19 Jun 2013 19:27:46 +0000, D.M.Chapman wrote:

In article ,
Bob Minchin wrote:

Mid 70s saw me programming PDP11 with ML/1 studying under its Author
Peter Brown and his wife Heather at University of Kent.
I'll still have my notes - "somewhere"

Heh, Peter was my project supervisor in my third year in the early 90's.
Modula-3 and C by that time though.

ML/I isn't a programming language per se - although I have added it to
the Rosetta Code site and also done some of the simpler tasks there in it.

I did a lot of work with ML/I in my final year (1973!) but it had nothing
to do with my degree work...

I still use it. I did the FreeBSD port.

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In article ,
Bob Eager wrote:
On Wed, 19 Jun 2013 19:27:46 +0000, D.M.Chapman wrote:

In article ,
Bob Minchin wrote:

Mid 70s saw me programming PDP11 with ML/1 studying under its Author
Peter Brown and his wife Heather at University of Kent.
I'll still have my notes - "somewhere"

Heh, Peter was my project supervisor in my third year in the early 90's.
Modula-3 and C by that time though.

ML/I isn't a programming language per se - although I have added it to
the Rosetta Code site and also done some of the simpler tasks there in it.

So I see - just been reading about it on wikipedia (so it *must* be true :-))

Peter Brown was also the reason I ended up working at the University after
my degree. Very odd phone call

"You did maths with computing? Did you like statistics?"
"No, I dropped stats in the first year and took pure maths"
"Ah, shame. But you did the C++ module?"
"nope, took graphicis, 68k asm and the postscript module"
"Ah shame. Do you want a job for 4 weeks doing some statistical analysis
in C++?"
"Yeah, go on then"

That was in 1995. My 4 week contract appears to have lasted well :-) I still
don't like stats, and I'm still not a great C++ developer :-)

Darren

On Wed, 19 Jun 2013 20:10:59 +0000, D.M.Chapman wrote:

In article ,
Bob Eager wrote:
On Wed, 19 Jun 2013 19:27:46 +0000, D.M.Chapman wrote:

In article ,
Bob Minchin wrote:

Mid 70s saw me programming PDP11 with ML/1 studying under its Author
Peter Brown and his wife Heather at University of Kent.
I'll still have my notes - "somewhere"

Heh, Peter was my project supervisor in my third year in the early
90's.
Modula-3 and C by that time though.

ML/I isn't a programming language per se - although I have added it to
the Rosetta Code site and also done some of the simpler tasks there in
it.

So I see - just been reading about it on wikipedia (so it *must* be true
:-))

Peter Brown was also the reason I ended up working at the University
after my degree. Very odd phone call

"You did maths with computing? Did you like statistics?"
"No, I dropped stats in the first year and took pure maths"
"Ah, shame. But you did the C++ module?"
"nope, took graphicis, 68k asm and the postscript module"
"Ah shame. Do you want a job for 4 weeks doing some statistical analysis
in C++?"
"Yeah, go on then"

That was in 1995. My 4 week contract appears to have lasted well :-) I
still don't like stats, and I'm still not a great C++ developer :-)

Peter was one of a kind. I heard about ML/I when I was a first year
undergraduate, but no one really seemed to know what it did. So I went
and asked him. He gave me a pile of documents including part of his
thesis, and I never looked back!

His books always had something in them that poked fun at Heather...I'm
sure she got her own back. The first book was describing the facilities
in the IBM macro assembler...

"this is utilitarian rather than beautiful"

("rather the girl you marry, not the one you dream about")
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On 19/06/2013 11:45, Huge wrote:
I'm not sure if we've had this conversation before, but we may have been
contemporaneous at UKC - I graduated in 1975 and spent far too much time
in the Computing Lab and nothing like enough in the Biology Lab, which
accounts for both the class of my degree and my current career. Prof.
Brown took my undergrad computing course, which was optional and designed
for people who already knew how to program. (I'd learned FORTRAN at school.)

Well, as Bob said it was my son who went to UKC, not me,but the rest of
that fits pretty well.

Learning about Android from the inside now.

Andy

On 19/06/2013 19:51, Bob Eager wrote:
On Wed, 19 Jun 2013 16:19:40 +0100, John Rumm wrote:

On 18/06/2013 22:31, Bob Eager wrote:
On Tue, 18 Jun 2013 22:18:16 +0100, Tim Streater wrote:

In article ,
Bob Eager wrote:

On Tue, 18 Jun 2013 20:45:20 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

On 18/06/13 20:01, D.M.Chapman wrote:
I seem to remember there were a few PDP-11 fans on here...

Fancy a job? :-)

http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcfo...ead.php?37827-
Greetings-
from-GE-Canada

http://goo.gl/177Iv

Darren

Golly. I used to write C on one of those..

C ? Pah! I started on them in assembler, but did hand assembly at
times.
Not to mention compilers for a couple of languages...

And I have four PDP-11s right here anyway.

Ever do any BCPL?

I used to run the BCPL User Group.

I did compilers for the DECSystem-10, Elliott 4130, PDP-11, VAX, ICL
2900/3900, MS-DOS....also greatly enhanced a Z80 one. Probably some
others.

ISTR my co-director wrote a BCPL compiler for his Atari 800...
originally in Atari BASIC, and then once working adequately enough he
rewrote it in BCPL of course.

The Commodore Amiga had an operating system (AmigaDOS) originally written
in BCPL...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIPOS

Indeed, it was my system of choice for many years before having to give
in a go the way of the wintel pc...

In the early days there were still vestiges of the BCPL ancestry in some
of the type definitions used when talking to AmigaDOS (the bit of the
system of tripos extraction). Most development being either C or 68K
assembler in those days, there were wrapper libraries to tidy up the
interfacing. They rewrote it in C after the first release though.

I still miss the joy of Amiga file handling and file system support, way
ahead of dos and windows, and preferable to the *nix way in many respects.

--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On 19/06/2013 19:51, Bob Eager wrote:
On Wed, 19 Jun 2013 16:19:40 +0100, John Rumm wrote:

On 18/06/2013 22:31, Bob Eager wrote:
On Tue, 18 Jun 2013 22:18:16 +0100, Tim Streater wrote:

In article ,
Bob Eager wrote:

On Tue, 18 Jun 2013 20:45:20 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

On 18/06/13 20:01, D.M.Chapman wrote:
I seem to remember there were a few PDP-11 fans on here...

Fancy a job? :-)

http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcfo...ead.php?37827-
Greetings-
from-GE-Canada

http://goo.gl/177Iv

Darren

Golly. I used to write C on one of those..

C ? Pah! I started on them in assembler, but did hand assembly at
times.
Not to mention compilers for a couple of languages...

And I have four PDP-11s right here anyway.

Ever do any BCPL?

I used to run the BCPL User Group.

I did compilers for the DECSystem-10, Elliott 4130, PDP-11, VAX, ICL
2900/3900, MS-DOS....also greatly enhanced a Z80 one. Probably some
others.

ISTR my co-director wrote a BCPL compiler for his Atari 800...
originally in Atari BASIC, and then once working adequately enough he
rewrote it in BCPL of course.

The Commodore Amiga had an operating system (AmigaDOS) originally written
in BCPL...

Should have also added; The Atari 800 was an early 8 bit micro, produced
many years before the 16/32 bit Amiga or Atari ST range came about.
Although coincidently the chipset designer (Jay Miner) was the same chap
for both.


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On Wed, 19 Jun 2013 23:05:48 +0100, dave wrote:

On Wed, 19 Jun 2013 11:46:59 -0700 (PDT), jgharston
wrote:

The Natural Philosopher wrote:
D.M.Chapman wrote:
I seem to remember there were a few PDP-11 fans on here...

Golly. I used to write C on one of those..

I used to write assembler on those, then wrote an assembler, a
disassembler, an emulator and a small Basic interpreter. Still toying
with it from time to time. Somebody actually emailed me to thank me for
writing the assembler and suggesting a couple of tweeks.

JGH

Wrote in assembler on PDP11/10... 34. BASIC and FORTRAN and RATFOR.
Wrote libs for FORTRAN to call assem. Real Time RT-11 user applications
AR11 i/o. Also ran "mini" unix, C compiler etc (Not at same time of
course :-)

I want to put Mini UNIX on one of mine...the 11/23. I also have an 11/84,
11/03, and a Micro PDP-11 (deskside, if you have a bloody big desk).

--
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK: http://www.mirrorservice.org
My posts (including this one) are my copyright and if @diy_forums on
Twitter wish to tweet them they can pay me £30 a post
*lightning surge protection* - a w_tom conductor

John Rumm wrote:
On 19/06/2013 19:51, Bob Eager wrote:
On Wed, 19 Jun 2013 16:19:40 +0100, John Rumm wrote:

The Commodore Amiga had an operating system (AmigaDOS) originally written
in BCPL...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIPOS

In the early days there were still vestiges of the BCPL ancestry in some
of the type definitions used when talking to AmigaDOS (the bit of the
system of tripos extraction). Most development being either C or 68K
assembler in those days, there were wrapper libraries to tidy up the
interfacing. They rewrote it in C after the first release though.

Would now be the time to introduce:
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/mr/bcpl4raspi.pdf

Theo

"Theo Markettos" wrote in message
...
John Rumm wrote:
On 19/06/2013 19:51, Bob Eager wrote:
On Wed, 19 Jun 2013 16:19:40 +0100, John Rumm wrote:

The Commodore Amiga had an operating system (AmigaDOS) originally
written
in BCPL...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIPOS

In the early days there were still vestiges of the BCPL ancestry in some
of the type definitions used when talking to AmigaDOS (the bit of the
system of tripos extraction). Most development being either C or 68K
assembler in those days, there were wrapper libraries to tidy up the
interfacing. They rewrote it in C after the first release though.

Would now be the time to introduce:
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/mr/bcpl4raspi.pdf

For 10 year olds?
WOW.

Huge writes:

On 2013-06-18, Bob Eager wrote:
On Tue, 18 Jun 2013 22:55:52 +0100, Jeremy Nicoll - news posts wrote:

(D.M.Chapman) wrote:

Fancy a job? :-)

http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcfo...827-Greetings-
from-GE-Canada

Hmm, the nuclear industy's still using those - does that give me a warm
feeling all over or - NO, Torness just went bang, my mistake.

Posted in Sunny Edinburgh. Actually, that's not the Sun...

They were pretty reliable. The University of Edinburgh used them as node
processors all over their network. And RJE stations. And frone end
processors for their mainframes.

AFAIK, Reuters are still running PDP-11 code all over their network, but
these days under an emulator.

They don't seem to believe in cutting edge technology (wonder why?). In
Vancouver about 1987 a Reuters PDP8-S (a serial CPU, the ultimate in
RISC) shared the air-conditioned room containing our DEC10 mainframes.
Apparently used by top management who I think had some kind of printer
upstairs in the rarefied heights of the building.

--
Windmill, Use t m i l l
J.R.R. Tolkien:- @ O n e t e l . c o m
All that is gold does not glister / Not all who wander are lost

"dennis@home" writes:

On 18/06/2013 22:26, newshound wrote:
On 18/06/2013 21:59, Tim Streater wrote:


C ? Pah! I started on them in assembler, but did hand assembly at
times. Not to mention compilers for a couple of languages...

And I have four PDP-11s right here anyway.

If you're going to write assembler for the PDP-11, then I can recommend
this language:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PL-11


PDP-11: luxury. I wrote my first serious code on a PDP-8f. I almost
memorised the RIM loader in the end. And I had a colleague who could
read assembler straight off paper tape.

I could read punched cards, I never had the use of paper tape so can't.

I did have the RIM loader memorised because I had to toggle it in so
often on the switches of an old transistor/resistor/capacitor 'straight 8'.

Probably could have recognised CLA on a paper tape, but wouldn't have
much luck with the rest. JMS I 17 ? 4417 maybe? No, I doubt it.


--
Windmill, Use t m i l l
J.R.R. Tolkien:- @ O n e t e l . c o m
All that is gold does not glister / Not all who wander are lost

On Thu, 20 Jun 2013 00:51:34 +0100, bm wrote:

"Theo Markettos" wrote in message
...
John Rumm wrote:
On 19/06/2013 19:51, Bob Eager wrote:
On Wed, 19 Jun 2013 16:19:40 +0100, John Rumm wrote:

The Commodore Amiga had an operating system (AmigaDOS) originally
written in BCPL...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIPOS

In the early days there were still vestiges of the BCPL ancestry in
some of the type definitions used when talking to AmigaDOS (the bit of
the system of tripos extraction). Most development being either C or
68K assembler in those days, there were wrapper libraries to tidy up
the interfacing. They rewrote it in C after the first release though.

Would now be the time to introduce:
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/mr/bcpl4raspi.pdf

For 10 year olds?
WOW.

I wouldn't trust quite a few students with BCPL. I wouldn't even trust
them with C, and that's a good deal safer!



--
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK: http://www.mirrorservice.org
My posts (including this one) are my copyright and if @diy_forums on
Twitter wish to tweet them they can pay me £30 a post
*lightning surge protection* - a w_tom conductor