From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
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From: bs <bs@nospam.com>
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To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] 9fans-ego-wars?
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Date: Sat, 27 Sep 2003 19:28:30 -0400
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C H Forsyth wrote:

 >>> I dont know how to put it but if I am right, Limbo is very good but one
 >>> cant use it for low level programming (like GC reducing predicatable
 >>> timing). C can be used well for low-level programming but there are
 >
 >
 >
 > ESPOL was an extended subset of the Burroughs Extended ALGOL language
 > that was tuned to implement systems programs such as the operating
system (MCP).
 > (i'd hoped the MCP source code was online by now but i couldn't find it;
 > its use of call-by-name to wait for an event was fascinating.)
 > anyhow, i thought it would be not too hard to do the same for Limbo,
 > once i'd decided it was really a sensible idea, that is.
 > i did think that in practice it might boil down to just preventing
 > the use of expensive things and limiting it to reference counting,
 > which could probably be done without actually creating a true dialect.

Truly the Burroughs ALGOL derivatives are excellent:
NEWP(New Prog Lang) for the OS
DMALGOL for Databases
DCALGOL for DataComm
each have extensions to suite their purpose.
IIRC ESPOL was also implemented on Burroughs systems, but I cannot
recall specific references.

MCP sources were never available online, however, any site could have
the sources to MCP, DMSII, COMS if they wanted. In fact many sites had
their own communications systems (before COMS, after GEMCOS), and a lot
of sites did submit patches to all the above.