From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.1 (2015-04-28) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.0 required=5.0 tests=MAILING_LIST_MULTI, RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.1 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (minnie.tuhs.org [45.79.103.53]) by inbox.vuxu.org (OpenSMTPD) with ESMTP id e1e844ef for ; Mon, 3 Sep 2018 06:19:28 +0000 (UTC) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id 6BE0CA1A94; Mon, 3 Sep 2018 16:19:27 +1000 (AEST) Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 35061A1A6C; Mon, 3 Sep 2018 16:19:04 +1000 (AEST) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id A62A6A1A2A; Mon, 3 Sep 2018 16:19:00 +1000 (AEST) Received: from freefriends.org (freefriends.org [96.88.95.60]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 36B9AA1A1A for ; Mon, 3 Sep 2018 16:19:00 +1000 (AEST) X-Envelope-From: arnold@skeeve.com Received: from freefriends.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by freefriends.org (8.14.9/8.14.9) with ESMTP id w836Iscg017829; Mon, 3 Sep 2018 00:18:54 -0600 Received: (from arnold@localhost) by freefriends.org (8.14.9/8.14.9/submit) id w836IsgW017828; Mon, 3 Sep 2018 06:18:54 GMT From: arnold@skeeve.com Message-Id: <201809030618.w836IsgW017828@freefriends.org> X-Authentication-Warning: frenzy.freefriends.org: arnold set sender to arnold@skeeve.com using -f Date: Mon, 03 Sep 2018 00:18:54 -0600 To: tuhs@tuhs.org, jpl.jpl@gmail.com, doug@cs.dartmouth.edu References: <201809022147.w82Ll1nu034542@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU> In-Reply-To: <201809022147.w82Ll1nu034542@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU> User-Agent: Heirloom mailx 12.4 7/29/08 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: [TUHS] Public access multics X-BeenThere: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.20 Precedence: list List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org Sender: "TUHS" Was Algol 60 any kind of viable alternative at the time? IIRC manufacturers in Europe were using it for systems programming. (This is all before my time, so I could be wrong, which is why I'm curious.) In the US Burroughs used Algol, but that may have been later than the mid-60s timeframe of Multics. Thanks, Arnold Doug McIlroy wrote: > Caveat: As a member of the PL/I committee, and the person who brought > the new and unimplemented language to the attention of Multics, let a > disastrous contract for a compiler, and finally helped cobble together > a rudimentary compiler that got the project off the ground, I am not > exactly an unbiased observer. > > A ground tenet of Multics was that it would be programmed in a higher > level language. A subsidiary requirement, which was generally agreed > upon, was language-level access to the logical operators and address > manipulation inherent in the hardware. No widely used language of the > time met this requirement. And they didn't want to get sidetracked into > language design. > > Discussions finally boiled down to AED, developed at MIT by Doug Ross, and > PL/I. Ross was a brilliant software innovator with a mystical outlook that > made it difficult to distinguish his vision of what could be done from > what actually existed. AED was definitely a moving target. By contrast > PL/I had a written spec, so you knew exactly what could be done in it, > though not how well the compiler would do it. > > PL/I was very big; we deliberately (and explicitly) omitted about > half the spec. The remainder was definitely seen as a "plausible > systems programming language". > > From the perspective of the time, why do you think the contrary? > > Doug