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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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14th Nov 2020, 9:40 pm | #1 |
Dekatron
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Old Programming Language
Does anybody else remember an old programming language -- probably a dialect of BASIC on some obscure micro -- that allowed you to omit the star from a multiplication, so you could write something like
Code:
100 Y=3X+A
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14th Nov 2020, 9:59 pm | #2 |
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Re: Old Programming Language
I don't remember anything like that, though there have been an awful lot of high level languages in the last 70 years.
On second thoughts, maybe you could do something like that in Snobol4, though it wouldn't be the normal way to code integer multiplication. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNOBOL https://www.snobol4.org/docs/burks/tutorial/ch1.htm |
14th Nov 2020, 10:33 pm | #3 |
Octode
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Re: Old Programming Language
Not really an answer but some like stoic & forth used used reverse polish notation, cant remember an RPN basic though. I think M5 on the Nascom was RPN.
At BT for the high level stuff we used PLI80 - today, no-one seems to have heard of it! Still have some of my PLI80 here, including an old skool BBS Took me ages to edit a Star Trek listing which had no spaces between keywords, NIBL style... your 'no multiply' notation would be even more tricky! Did the opposite also work, so 3W is the same as W3 (W3 being a valid variable!) ? Cheers Phil |
14th Nov 2020, 11:04 pm | #4 |
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Re: Old Programming Language
Generally, the high-level programming languagues that I worked with would have expressed an equation like that as Y=3*X+A
+ = add - = subtract * = multiply / = divide ^ = raise to the power
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14th Nov 2020, 11:41 pm | #5 |
Tetrode
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Re: Old Programming Language
I recall that TI-Basic could do this implicit multiplication. Speaking as a compiler writer, it is a particularly disgusting programming language feature! It can give rise to some tricky syntactic and semantic ambiguities.
Best wishes Des |
15th Nov 2020, 2:26 pm | #6 |
Octode
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Re: Old Programming Language
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15th Nov 2020, 4:07 pm | #7 |
Heptode
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Re: Old Programming Language
One wonders what such a parser would make of the expression
Y=2E-3X+A Is that 0.002 * X + A or 2*E - 3*X +A? |
15th Nov 2020, 4:12 pm | #8 |
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Re: Old Programming Language
It could be resolved, it's just a question of syntax and coding conventions. Most programmers would agree that this would be poor design though. It's much better to have explicit unambiguous binary operators.
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15th Nov 2020, 4:19 pm | #9 |
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Re: Old Programming Language
For the first interpretation, even in a formula for human consumption, there needs to be some indication that the "-3" is a power rather than a subtraction. Normally this is by showing it in superscript.
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15th Nov 2020, 7:36 pm | #10 |
Hexode
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Re: Old Programming Language
FORTRAN maybe? long time ago, sorry.
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15th Nov 2020, 8:45 pm | #11 |
Tetrode
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Re: Old Programming Language
I don't think that even the earliest Fortran versions allowed you to avoid the star for multiplication. I stand by my comment that it's a disgusting feature - it's just oozing with ambiguity or the potential for ambiguity and that's something you definitely don't want in a programming language. Does A3 have the same value as 3A?!
I think that today, the only common use of value/variable juxtaposition is string concatenation. Programming language design is a fascinating subject... Best wishes Des |
15th Nov 2020, 8:50 pm | #12 |
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Re: Old Programming Language
In an algebraic formula the number would always precede the variable, so you would never encounter A3 instead of 3A.
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15th Nov 2020, 9:15 pm | #13 |
Nonode
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Re: Old Programming Language
I remember using MathCAD under MS-DOS in about 1990. It understood standard algebraic expressions natively. There were also a lot of TI and Casio programmable calculators around then which didn't need the multiplication sign either.
Chris
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15th Nov 2020, 9:45 pm | #14 |
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Re: Old Programming Language
No, Fortran has some really horrible features, but that isn't one of them.
There was a fad in the 1980s and 90s for programmers to compete as to who could write the most terse and impenetrable C code. This was known to be bad practice even then (there are no efficiency benefits, as the compiler optimises the code anyway). Some languages are notoriously verbose without even being unambiguous, most notably Cobol. People used to say that you could feed your email inbox into a Cobol compiler and it would produce executable code without errors (though there's no knowing what the program would actually do if you ran it - possibly some Terminator scenario). MULTIPLY X BY 3 ADDING A GIVING Y. Programmers hate Cobol, even Cobol programmers. Nevertheless, many lines of Cobol are still being run now, 60 years after they were written. |
15th Nov 2020, 10:16 pm | #15 |
Dekatron
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Re: Old Programming Language
By the way, it was always drummed into me that FORTRAN (which was my first introduction to computer programming at the end of the 1960s) was, for some reason, always spelt in capital letters. No doubt, if it were invented today it would be spelt ForTran, being a contraction of "formula translation" (or something like that).
As for COBOL (COmmon Business Orient(at)ed Language), I fortunately never had to use that in earnest, though I did learn it as part of my Computer Studies course at college. As described by Paul, "verbose" sums it up well.
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15th Nov 2020, 10:34 pm | #16 |
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Re: Old Programming Language
Most computer terms in the 60s and 70s were upper case only, because computers used weird restricted character sets to save the odd bit of memory (literally - 6 bits per character instead of 7 or 8). When I started as a postgrad student in 1978, Oxford was still using an ICL1906A mainframe which was uppercase only, though it was in the process of being retired.
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16th Nov 2020, 12:43 am | #17 |
Dekatron
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Re: Old Programming Language
At the time I left Plessey in 1976 we were still writing programs for our time share computer on a teleprinter that only had an upper case font. Our local storage medium was 7 hole 1" paper tape.
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16th Nov 2020, 10:24 am | #18 | |
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Re: Old Programming Language
Quote:
By the way, a bit of further investigation has revealed that FORTRAN has now officially been renamed as Fortran, dropping the earlier insistence upon capitals. As you say, this presumably reflects the move away from early computers with their restricted character sets. COBOL however, being an acronym, is still capitalised.
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16th Nov 2020, 11:25 am | #19 |
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Re: Old Programming Language
The government insisted the public sector bought British whenever possible in the 60s, so ICT/ICL sold lots of the 1900 series to universities and polys. Only a few had non ICL mainframes - I think Cambridge somehow managed to buy an IBM360.
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16th Nov 2020, 1:31 pm | #20 | |
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Re: Old Programming Language
Quote:
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