16 Jun
2026
16 Jun
'26
8:04 p.m.
On Tue, 2026-06-16 at 20:54 -0500, Mike Katz via cctalk wrote:
Someone said assembler was dead, I have to disagree.
I still program
in
6809, 68000, ARM, HP-41 and HP71 assembler from time to time. I've
used
ARM assembler in my work recently.
I still write IBM 1401 code in Autocoder, and some of it gets run at
the Computer History Museum. I can assemble the code using Real™ IBM
Autocoder in the SimH i1401 simulator, or using the cross assembler I
wrote before Dick Weaver gave me an installation deck for Autocoder on
a 9-track (!) tape that I had to send to Paul Pierce to read it —
because the tape drives on the 1401s at CHM are, of course, 7-track
drives.
I completely revised Gary Mokotoff's FORTRAN-II compiler because the
TAU emulator at CHM has a small buffer, and blocks of the compiler
wouldn't fit through the emulator to allow running it from their PC
pretending to be a tape drive.