9 Apr
2020
9 Apr
'20
9:18 p.m.
On 2020-04-08 22:47, J. David Bryan via cctalk wrote:
The HP Orsay (not Grenoble, as I misremembered)
implementation is the
only
SNOBOL3 implementation I've used. There's a free SNOBOL4
implementation
here for various PC operating systems:
https://github.com/spitbol/
Actually, it's a SPITBOL implementation, which is a compiled version of
SNOBOL4; see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPITBOL
I've used the Windows NT version for years; it's still my preferred
language for string manipulation. Note that SNOBOL3 and SNOBOL4 are
different syntactically, though learning one certainly would aid in
learning the other.
I first learn of SNOBOL4, still have my copy of the green book which was
how I first came across it. I know there are various versions available
online these days, just been low on the todo list.
If you're not necessarily wedded to the HP
21xx/1000 architecture, the
HP
3000 simulator and its associated MPE operating system kit from the
SIMH/HP
site has a number of languages preinstalled:
- BASIC (interpreter and compiler)
- COBOL 68
- COBOL 74/85
- FORTRAN 66
- Pascal
- RPG
- SPL
The latter is HP's proprietary Systems Programming Language, an
ALGOL-like
derivative used in lieu of assembler to implement MPE and most of the
compilers and utilities.
Only "wedded" to the HP 21xx for nostalgia purposes having been my first
exposure to computers and wanted to play with it some more. Having lots
of free time at the moment, I'm investigating lots of different systems.
Mainly via emulation/simulation. HP 3000 is certainly on the list and a
lot of the languages that you list there are on the "to play with" list
so I'll probably bump it up the todo list a bit. Would be fun to play
around with COBOL, FORTRAN and others again. I seem to recall we had a
FORTRAN on our 2000F which was my first exposure to that language but as
it was under 2000F TSB I assume it was something written in BASIC that
either interpreted FORTRAN or maybe a p-code like system or what I have
no idea. Was so long ago I have old print outs from it but don't recall
anything more about it otherwise and haven't ever seen anything about it
in my limited searches. But it did start me exploring other languages
which lead me to discover SNOBOL and many others.
David Williams