From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.0 required=5.0 tests=MAILING_LIST_MULTI, T_SCC_BODY_TEXT_LINE autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: (qmail 17023 invoked from network); 9 Aug 2022 13:56:56 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (50.116.15.146) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 9 Aug 2022 13:56:56 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [IPv6:::1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C72CB40CC9; Tue, 9 Aug 2022 23:56:34 +1000 (AEST) Received: from mcvoy.com (mcvoy.com [192.169.23.250]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id A967940010 for ; Tue, 9 Aug 2022 23:56:31 +1000 (AEST) Received: by mcvoy.com (Postfix, from userid 3546) id 4F8F935E2F2; Tue, 9 Aug 2022 06:56:31 -0700 (PDT) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2022 06:56:31 -0700 From: Larry McVoy To: Rob Pike Message-ID: <20220809135631.GH20435@mcvoy.com> References: <20220724190253.GA23421@tau1.ceti.pl> <20220728003014.GB6195@tau1.ceti.pl> <202207280103.26S13ZL5059300@ultimate.com> <1E44D7CE-CC4D-4F86-97CC-208E3972A785@msweng.com> <20220729050748.GB12246@tau1.ceti.pl> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.24 (2015-08-30) Message-ID-Hash: ICXTLNZYDP4IMJMRBX2ZHUQRIZVPO3PB X-Message-ID-Hash: ICXTLNZYDP4IMJMRBX2ZHUQRIZVPO3PB X-MailFrom: lm@mcvoy.com X-Mailman-Rule-Misses: dmarc-mitigation; no-senders; approved; emergency; loop; banned-address; member-moderation; header-match-tuhs.tuhs.org-0; nonmember-moderation; administrivia; implicit-dest; max-recipients; max-size; news-moderation; no-subject; digests; suspicious-header CC: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society X-Mailman-Version: 3.3.6b1 Precedence: list Subject: [TUHS] Re: SNOBOL and RATSNO List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list Archived-At: List-Archive: List-Help: List-Owner: List-Post: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: On Tue, Aug 09, 2022 at 04:11:38PM +1000, Rob Pike wrote: > We're probably well off topic now but... > > Many years ago I ran into Bob Dewar on a visit to Cambridge University and > we got to talking. He said that the original implementation of SPITBOL, for > the System/360, was in assembler (of course), and written by him and > Belcher (?). The story he told was that they wrote it all down first, put > it on punch cards, and sent it to the IBM machine. The next day they got > back a listing with a bunch of errors. They iterated. By the fourth > round???fifth day???they had a working SPITBOL. > > I still marvel at the productivity and precision of his generation of > programmers. I had the same reaction to pic(1). You could look at the code and "see" what it was doing. I've always believed that pic was so well designed because it took a day to get the print out (back then), so you had to have a language where you could see what it was doing.