Re: The joy of FORTRAN-like languages

Lars Poulsen <lars@beagle-ears.com> writes:

On 30/09/2024 14:33, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

On 30 Sep 2024 16:51:33 -0400, Rich Alderson wrote:

[PDP-6/PDP-10:] Lovely machines to program.

Bit before my time (the main campus machine was a PDP-11/70 when I started
first year Comp Sci). But I know they had a very loyal community, who were
very upset when DEC cancelled its "Jupiter" project in favour of going
all-in on VAX.

"Venus is much smaller than Jupiter, but it is also a lot closer!"

That's an incorrect quote.  The real quote, from Fred Wright II, is

Mars may be smaller than Jupiter, but it is a lot closer.

This was in reference to the Systems Concepts SC-30M, code named "Mars", a
PDP-10 architecture system created by Stewart Nelson and Mike Leavitt (who
should be familiar to readers of Levy's _Hackers_).  Fred was one of the
operating systems programmers for their box; he said it after the announcement
of the Jupiter cancellation (May, 1983).  I still have my button, courtesy
of Fred.

We took first customer shipment[1] at LOTS (the Stanford academic computing
facility) at All Hallows' Eve, 1986, and placed it next to the 3 KL-10 based
DEC-20s.  Stu Grossman, best known for his work at Cygwin, worked in our
computer room for a couple of months to get their CI channels to work with the
actual DEC CI/HSC50 hardware.  Stu got fired by Mike for being at lunch with me
when Mike called the computer room.

[1] The box we got was actually their prototype unit, because they had to
    deliver *something* or refund the deposit.  That's why some of the work was
    done in our computer room.

--
Rich Alderson   news@alderson.users.panix.com
      Audendum est, et veritas investiganda; quam etiamsi non assequamur,
  omnino tamen proprius, quam nunc sumus, ad eam perveniemus.
--Galen