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Vintage Computers Any vintage computer systems, calculators, video games etc., but with an emphasis on 1980s and earlier equipment. |
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4th Dec 2020, 3:40 pm | #41 |
Octode
Join Date: Apr 2018
Location: Newbury, Berkshire, UK.
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Re: Old Programming Language
I learnt "assembler" programming in CAGE - The City & Guilds Engine if I remember correctly. It was run on a local colleges mainframe using an emulator and was used by all computer studies courses examined by the City & Guilds organisation. It was similar to CESIL in concept. In my 6th form I wrote an interpreter for it in Algol that run on the schools newly acquired Research Machines 380Z. I was flattered to learn that students in the years following me used it to do their coursework for several years after I left the school - it was much easier using my interpreter program on the 380Z than sending off punched cards to the college! Eventually the schools PETs and 380Z were retired in favour of BBC Micros and the odd IBM machine.
https://iclces.uk/articles/city_and_...onic_code.html Last edited by Slothie; 4th Dec 2020 at 3:41 pm. Reason: Added link |
4th Dec 2020, 7:55 pm | #42 |
Octode
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Location: Barry, Vale of Glamorgan, Wales, UK.
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Re: Old Programming Language
Wow - snap my first real programming job (unpaid) was to write a CESIL interpreter on the loaned TRS80 from the maths teacher so it was quicker and more interactive for students to practice - one of the first sold products for Gilsoft was ZX81, Spectrum and Dragon versions of that program for Schools... The RML380Z was locked in a small room so the TRS80 was able to be in the class...
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4th Dec 2020, 8:23 pm | #43 |
Octode
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Re: Old Programming Language
I suppose nowadays its so easy to teach low-level programming on microcontrollers but back then these psuedo-assembler languages really showed you how the hardware worked in a way that programming in BASIC or COBOL (!) couldn't. Nowadays its probably not something that much time is spent on.
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4th Dec 2020, 10:09 pm | #44 | |
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Re: Old Programming Language
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9th Dec 2020, 6:47 pm | #45 |
Octode
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Re: Old Programming Language
I think the OP question may refer to CPL that was developed and discussed in this fascinating article as it makes specific mention of the elimination of an asterisk...
https://arstechnica.com/features/202...e-origins-of-c I would encourage you to watch the linked video as well as the origin of the Job Queue and the operation of the library of routines 'pasted' into the code as it is punched is also very interesting... |
9th Dec 2020, 9:38 pm | #46 |
Octode
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Re: Old Programming Language
As a student back in the early 80's at Exeter, some of the 3rd year students who were writing compilers used BCPL (The cut down version of CPL) to write the Pascal compiler and the editor we used for our coursework on the NORD-100 minicomputer the department owned. Although I was interested in its low-level nature I never really got to use BCPL as my projects didn't use it, and so I didn't really recognise the lineage of C when I started using that much later (after I graduated I first joined a VAX Software house who mainly used Macro-32, FORTRAN and COBOL). I did all my system-level programming in FORTRAN like a real man!
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9th Dec 2020, 10:14 pm | #47 |
Dekatron
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Re: Old Programming Language
Surely a "real man" did all his system programming in assembly language - or even better, machine code!
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9th Dec 2020, 10:18 pm | #48 | |
Octode
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Re: Old Programming Language
Quote:
... graduated to a monitor at some point as well -pure luxury. Had my eyes opened to how the rest of the world lived with Linking MACRO assemblers when I had access the the Alpha and its onboard tools to write code for the WD16 in college. |
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9th Dec 2020, 10:44 pm | #49 | |
Nonode
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Re: Old Programming Language
Quote:
I've programmed in various high level languages. Started with BASIC, then was taught FORTRAN PASCAL and finally C. Now C I got, and something I worked with for many years (CAPL) was so based on C that it continued. Then Arduino came along and just reinforced my preference for it as a high level language. It has it's limitations and risks (dare i mention MISRA?) but has been the longest serving language I've consistently used. |
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10th Dec 2020, 1:26 am | #50 |
Octode
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Re: Old Programming Language
I have programmed professionally in a number of languages over the 35ish years Ive worked, but most of it was in C and since the early 2000's Python, although I've done my dues with javascript, HTML, CSS et al and some more obscure languages like OpenROAD, QuickBasic and GraduATE (An automation language for automatic test equipment).
Writing system level programs in Assembler/Machine code is too much like using an appropriate tool for the job! |
20th May 2021, 11:13 pm | #51 | ||
Pentode
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Re: Old Programming Language
Quote:
As for COBOL we would code our programs on 80 columns coding sheets, they were sent to Hatfield Polytechnic to be put on to punched cards then put forward as a batch job to compile and run. I don't think I ever got a COBOL program to run with out error's, talking to a younger guy about unix he could not understand why we had ED the line editor. Now we have large screens a mouse and touch screens how much easer to develop a program. That writing your program on paper and sending to hatfield took days between edits and test run's. Other funny thing many years later the DEC sales rep to Hatfield Polytechnic became a colleague (At Convex computes mid 90's) and friend. |
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21st May 2021, 12:26 am | #52 |
Dekatron
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Re: Old Programming Language
Somewhere I have a description of one particular programming language from the 60s that the writer described as "cryptic, powerful, and where a command line looks like a burst of transmission line noise"
And I go back to the day of punch card programming in Fortran74 and Algol68,, where if you used more than 32k of core store you had to get written permission. That was an ICL mainframe at Southampton University. More computing power in a fitbit now. Craig |
21st May 2021, 7:55 am | #53 | |
Dekatron
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Re: Old Programming Language
Quote:
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21st May 2021, 8:13 am | #54 |
Heptode
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Re: Old Programming Language
If that was the one in the computer dept , I remember it well, walking across the road from the Faraday building with a stack of punch cards for a field solver written in FORTRAN (and trying not to drop them). Then going back a few hours later and hoping it had run without error.
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21st May 2021, 6:20 pm | #55 |
Dekatron
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Re: Old Programming Language
I have some leaflets about the Leo III computer and its peripherals. The one for the "Data Processing System" says:
"Programs may be written in CLEO (Clear Language for Expressing Orders) or Intercode. Both languages can deal equally with mathematical and commercial procedures. " No examples of these languages are provided in the leaflets. Only upper-case letters were available. When I was a student, in the summer of 1968 I had a very rewarding 3 month placement in the STC Submarine Cables lab at North Woolwich. Their filter designing was carried out by running programs on a computer that STC had donated to Woolwich Polytechnic. It was called something like Stantech Zebra. I am not sure now if that was the name of the computer or its programming language as I was never involved in programming it. Last edited by emeritus; 21st May 2021 at 6:23 pm. Reason: typos |
21st May 2021, 7:00 pm | #56 | |
Hexode
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Location: Edinburgh, Scotland, UK.
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Re: Old Programming Language
Quote:
(I'm not associated with the museum, but I have donated magazines to them in the past). |
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21st May 2021, 7:05 pm | #57 |
Dekatron
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Location: Wiltshire, UK.
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Re: Old Programming Language
STC's "Zebra" computer was interesting:
https://www.computerhistory.org/broc...4372956d6b611/ https://collection.sciencemuseumgrou...r-minicomputer https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/~cmi/physics/computers.html |
21st May 2021, 7:57 pm | #58 |
Dekatron
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Location: Brentwood, Essex, UK.
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Re: Old Programming Language
Thanks for the links, especially the third. I did once get to see the Woolwich Poly computer in operation, and remember seeing the row(s) of CRT screens, AFAIR each with multiple traces. I later wondered if they might have been a type of CRT memory, but it seems that they were just displaying register contents rather than functioning as the registers.
I will scan the Leo III leafets later: they are only single sheets. |
21st May 2021, 8:15 pm | #59 |
Heptode
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Re: Old Programming Language
I have never heard of a Fortran74
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21st May 2021, 8:47 pm | #60 |
Dekatron
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Re: Old Programming Language
Yes, I was wondering about that. Did Craig mean FORTRAN 77?
According to Wikipedia, it went: FORTRAN FORTRAN II FORTRAN III FORTRAN IV FORTRAN 66 FORTRAN 77 Fortran 90 Fortran 95 Fortran 2003 Fortran 2008 Fortran 2018 I must admit that I was unaware of the 21st-century versions.
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