[TUHS] 11/40E and 11/60 (was: speaking of early C compilers)

[clemc@ccc.com (Clem Cole)]

On Tue, Oct 28, 2014 at 1:46 PM, Johnny Billquist <bqt at update.uu.se> wrote:

> DEC actually made two PDP-11s that were micro programmable. The 11/60 and
> the 11/03 (if I remember right). DEC never had microprogramming for the
> 11/40, but obviously CMU did that.


C.mmp was 11/40E's and C.m* was LSI/11's and both needed them for the
capabilities support.  I never really got to mess with the WCS units -
although we learned about them (along with ISPL/ISPS in courses), I did
hack on the OS and in user space of both systems - which was a wonderful
experience. It was how I learned about capabilities which I still have soft
spot.   But around that time, I was also introduced to this strange new
system language and system and started to get paid better as a programmer
for a group using it.   I never went back ;-)

As an a side, Wulf's dedication in the Hydra (C.mmp's OS) Book:  "To the
designers and builders of *real* programming systems."

BTW: the 780 & 750 had ustore but it was not user documented and the tools
were internal.   Paul Guilbo wrote much of both and later would write the
uCode for the Masscomp FPU and APU.   Paul was bitching about the great
tool(s) they had had at DEC, so one weekend two of us on the SW team got
sick of his bitching a couple of us hacked up a uCode assembler in the same
key in Yacc/lex/C (not BLISS ;-).

Later when a couple of ex-PRISM guys started a firm in California there was
an underground trade (i.e. no management knew about it).  We were both
using the same EE/CAD systems and we traded them some libraries for our
uCode tools.

Clem
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