From: Rob Pike <robpike@gmail.com>
To: heinz@osta.com
Cc: tuhs@tuhs.org
Subject: [TUHS] Re: Clever code [ really PB 250 ]
Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2022 17:13:28 +1100 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <CAKzdPgzFnQr0o4rfytv_Th10W52U3kKcTSXxbdG4o7g5t2nZxw@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <cc83679b-a662-2344-4993-0dc84cb62971@osta.com>
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Well, if you're sharing educational bootstrapping stories, Heinz, if I
remember right you were the first person I saw in person from Bell Labs,
when you gave a talk at the University of Toronto about Bell's work on
ARPANET around 1977.
-rob
On Wed, Dec 14, 2022 at 4:08 PM Heinz Lycklama <heinz@osta.com> wrote:
> Jon, I found the documentation for SNAP and FSNAP
> which both ran on the DDP-516 multiprogramming
> operating system. Both documents were written in
> the summer/fall of 1970, and the FSNAP language
> is based on SNAP programming language, but I'm not
> sure if this SNAP language was the same as the one
> you used on the PDP-8. I'll send you the two documents
> in a separate email so you can tell if the two SNAP's
> are one and the same. We are talking 52 years ago now.
> Let's see if you can remember.
>
> Heinz
>
> P.S. Coincidentally I learned much of my system level
> programming on a PDP-8 computer during my
> student graduate days in the late 1960's.
>
>
>
> On 12/13/2022 9:14 AM, Jon Steinhart wrote:
> > Wow, this brings back memories. When I was a kid I remember visiting
> > a guy who had a barn full of computers in or around Princeton, N.J.
> > There was a Burroughs 500, a PB 250, and a PDP-8. The 500 was a vacuum
> > tube and nixie display machine. That sucker used a lot of neon, and I
> > seem to remember that it used about $100 worth of electricity in 1960s
> > dollars just to warm it up. I think that the PB 250 was one of the
> > first machines built using transistors. I assume that all of you know
> > what a PDP-8 is. I remember using the PDP-8 using SNAP (simple numeric
> > arithmetic processor) to crank out my math homework. Note that the PB
> > 250 also had SNAP, but in that case it was their assembler.
> >
> > Some of the first serious programming that I did was later at BTL on
> > 516-TSS using FSNAP (floating-point SNAP) written by Heinz. Maybe he
> > can fill us in on whether it was derived from SNAP.
> >
> > Anyway, I could only visit the place occasionally because it was far
> > from home. Does anyone else out there know anything about it? It's a
> > vague memory brought back by the mention of the 250.
> >
> > Jon
>
>
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prev parent reply other threads:[~2022-12-14 6:15 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 4+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2022-12-13 17:14 Jon Steinhart
2022-12-13 22:49 ` Douglas McIlroy
2022-12-14 5:07 ` Heinz Lycklama
2022-12-14 6:13 ` Rob Pike [this message]
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