[HECnet] VAX/Smalltalk-80

[Thomas DeBellis]

Yes, that is pretty awesome!

I don't suppose any flavor of Smalltalk ever made it over to the 
PDP-10?  I think Object Oriented Lisp (Lisp with Flavors) may have made it.

There was a graphics device called a Type 340 Precision Incremental CRT 
Display which was used on the PDP-6 and available on the KA-10.  I saw 
one at MIT on MIT-AI (ITS).  Since Tenex started out on a KA-10, it is 
available there, too.

I never heard of it on the KI-10 but I believe it was possible. For 
internal memory on the 20, probably not.  Tops-20 has certain small 
traces of the device.

However, SIMH does in fact implement the Type 340; apparently, fully.  
You can a pop-up window with all the dots in the right places.  I had 
started investigating porting some of that code to KLH10.  One assumes 
with the SIMH KL, it could be made available. It's an interesting thought.

On 4/7/20 4:46 PM, mark at wickensonline.co.uk wrote:
> Wow!
>
> Thank you for this! Not only is Smalltalk interesting in itself, but this an excellent example of VAX Macro-32 too!
> I will attempt to assemble + compile the application.
> It looks like it is using VS II user interface libraries. That will be the first hurdle to compile it on a machine with the appropriate library and graphics - I'm thinking here maybe on of Matt's graphical versions of SIMH?
>
> Thanks, Mark.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE <owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE> On Behalf Of John H. Reinhardt
> Sent: 07 April 2020 15:15
> To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE
> Subject: Re: [HECnet] VAX/Smalltalk-80
>
> On 4/7/2020 7:45 AM, Nigel Williams wrote:
>> See below for a link to a g-drive file containing a ZIP archive of the DEC research group implementation of Smalltalk for the VAX.
>>
>> If someone has a VT125 to try it on I would appreciate seeing an image of the screen with Smalltalk running.
>>
>> Begin forwarded message:
>>
>>> *From:* Nigel Williams <nw at retroComputingTasmania.com>
>>> *Date:* 7 April 2020 at 10:33:55 pm AEST
>>> *To:* John Ames <commodorejohn at gmail.com>
>>> *Subject:* *Re:  VAX/Smalltalk-80?*
>>>
>>> 
>>>>> On 2 Apr 2020, at 10:08 am, John Ames via cctech <cctech at classiccmp.org> wrote:
>>>> I know from the book "Smalltalk-80: Bits of History, Words of Advice"
>>> Thanks for the reminder about the VMS version, as you likely know
>>> their paper about VAX Smalltalk was in an early DEC Technical Journal
>>> too.
>>>
>>>> ...while the second ran under VMS and was actually developed within
>>>> DEC. This version - VAX/Smalltalk-80 - was headed up by Stoney
>>>> Ballard and Stephen Shirron; anybody know if there's a surviving
>>>> copy out there, if it was ever available outside DEC to begin with?
>>> I contacted Stephen and he kindly provided a ZIP
>>>
>>> https://drive.google.com/open?id=1NvO-ULropJ9xyT-WFqalXY79FBt6tdfB
>>>
>>> I had a quick look and it will need an early VMS I suspect, around
>>> version 4.x (might work on a later version).
>>>
>>> cheers,
>>> nigel.
> Very cool.  I have the three (?) popular books about smalltalk-80 from the 80's. I'll have to dig them out along with the DEC Tech Journal (If I have it).
>
> --
> John H. Reinhardt
>
>