[HECnet] Thrashing about...

[Clem Cole]

On Sun, Jul 15, 2018 at 6:43 PM, Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com> wrote:

>
>
> On Sun, Jul 15, 2018 at 4:54 PM, Paul Koning <paulkoning at comcast.net>
> wrote:
>
>>
>> Algol68-RS?  That's not familiar.  I don't remember Algol 68 from DEC.
>
> ​I don't remember TLG doing Algol68.  I'll should see Leslie or one the
> old TLG managers next week at the weekly lunch and I'll ask.​
>
​I sent an email to the folks I still see and here are some replies:
​

>From the manager of Technical Language Group @ DEC:  'No - ALGOL68 wasn't
on our list.  In my pre-DEC life I worked on an ALGOL-based compiler called
"PLUS" at what was then Sperry Univac...definitely not for the VAX!!!'

We were were discussing at lunch one day, I don't think DEC thought there
just was much of a market, particularly once Pascal showed up. From the
same discussion, one of the compiler implementors said (remember DEC
charged for its compilers so renumeration was an important factor when they
decided to build one - so it had to make money of they were to build it):  "I
don’t recall any serious discussion of an internal DEC Algol compiler
project on the PDP-11, VAX or Alpha at DEC.  To the best of my
recollection, the only serious users of Algol were British, and the
language is a pain in the neck to implement, with lots of performance
land-mines."

Clem



ᐧ
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.sonic.net/pipermail/hecnet-list/attachments/20180716/87d39306/attachment-0001.html>