11 Nov
2003
11 Nov
'03
5:03 a.m.
Eric Smith <eric(a)brouhaha.com> wrote:
The title of the film comes from the TRON instruction
of the PDP-10,
one of the 64 logical test and modify instructions. The TRON
mnemonic means _Test accumulator _Right half immediate, set selected
bits to _One, and skip unless all selected bits are zero (the skip
phrase being coded as "N" in the mnemonic):
http://pdp10.nocrew.org/docs/instruction-set/Logical-Tests.html
It has nothing to do with the "trace on" command in Microsoft BASIC,
and the PDP-10 does not have a "TROFF" instruction.
On the orignal Laserdisk audio commentary (also included on the 20th
Anniversry DVD release) Steven Lisberger clearly stated:
"The name Tron is derived from 'Electron'. Some programmers think it
refers to Trace On/Trace off, but we learned about that afterwords."
--
tim lindner
tlindner(a)ix.netcom.com