10 Apr
2017
10 Apr
'17
2:23 p.m.
On Apr 10, 2017 2:43 PM, "Chuck Guzis via cctalk" <cctalk at
classiccmp.org>
wrote:
Were there any microprocessor chips that attempted to
mimic the
Burroughs B5000 series and natively execute Algol of any flavor?
Yes, that's what the HP 3000 did (before PA RISC), and they did make
microprocessor implementations of it.
The Intel iAPX 432 was also designed to explicitly support block-structured
languages. The main language Intel pushed was Ada, but there was no
technical reason it couldn't have supported Algol, Pascal, Modula, Euclid,
Mesa, etc. just as well. (Or just as poorly, depending on your point of
view.)
The iAPX 432 could not have supported standard C, though, except in the
sense that since the 432 GDP was Turing-complete, code running on it could
provide an emulated environment suitable for standard C.
When the 432 project (originally 8800) started, there weren't many people
predicting that C (and its derivatives) would take over the world.