Classic programming

[Guy Sotomayor]

I view the language issue along the same lines as the OS (or monitor, or 
???) that exists on
the various classic computers.  With some notable exceptions, I tend not 
to run Unix on my
classic HW but one of the original OS's that the HW was shipped with.  
The same goes for
programming languages.  I don't want to write everything in "C".  In 
some cases C imposes
too heavy a burden (MVS 3.8 J for example) and isn't in line with the 
"flavor" of the machine
and/or OS.  In the case of my Symbolics machines, even though there is a 
C compiler for it,
my question is "why?".  It's a LISP machine, you should write in LISP 
(after all even the OS is
written in LISP).

When I'm doing programming, I choose the language that's most 
appropriate.  Not only based
upon the problem at hand but the environment/machine it's intended to be 
used on.  For
example, for my MEM11 project, I'm using a uP that is designed to run 
Forth, so I'm writing
everything in Forth (including the simulator).  It turns out to be 
really efficient and low
overhead.  I can't imagine what it would take for a C-runtime to provide 
the environment
that I currently have with Forth.

TTFN - Guy

On 8/7/15 12:10 PM, Sean Caron wrote:
> I suppose so ... in the process of building various little
> single-board-computers based on historical microprocessors, I end up using
> their corresponding assembly languages, some of which are probably no
> longer really in commercial use.
>
> Mostly on UNIX I just use C (or Perl, or ...) but on other platforms where
> other languages are available, like on VMS, or on platforms where C (or
> even Pascal) is _not_ available (say, MTS or MVS 3.8J on Hercules) I like
> to play around with some of the older languages, that you might not see
> used so much anymore ... Pascal, LISP, FORTRAN, PL/I, SNOBOL, of course
> good ole BASIC ... whatever's available and I have some reference materials
> for (I enjoy collecting good old EE/CS textbooks as well) ... mostly these
> are little "toy" programs though, just to run the compilers through their
> paces and see the OS run a few executables ... I'm not doing any real
> development in FORTRAN or PL/I :O
>
> Best,
>
> Sean
>
>
> On Fri, Aug 7, 2015 at 12:18 PM, Eric Christopherson <
> echristopherson at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Is there a subset of this group for people who like to program in
>> languages or language implementations or libraries that are no longer
>> in common mainstream use? Or other groups for such a thing?
>>
>> --
>>          Eric Christopherson
>>