26 Aug
1998
26 Aug
'98
2:24 p.m.
> Now *that's* historic! Western Digitals first
(and last) CPU effort, the
> first HLL ever implemented as an instruction set on a chip (afaik, anyway),
> rare as hen's teeth (I'll bet it's scarcity is on the order of the Apple
I),
> not to mention that it was a *very* early 16-bit system that was actually
> available to mere mortals.
I thought the DEC LSI11 (PDP11/03) used a variety of
this chip with different
microcode roms.
Shure, bur the PMS (*G*) utilizes the p-code engine as native
Code - at one time the UCSD p-System was a kind of a ruling
cross platform and cross language standard. The 'p' of p-System
was 'pseudo' not 'Pascal' as most people belive - they had
compilers for Pascal, Fortran, Cobol and Basic - all using
the same p-code engine to run ans all using the same 'OS'.
So to get the system on a new nmachine you just had to write
some low level parts of drivers, and, if the new system had a
different microprocessor, a new p-code interpreter - whoops,
and everything was running.
Cross platform development was an easy thing - write one
application and let it run on PETs, Tandys, CPM/systems,
of coure on APPLE ][s and even on IBM-PCs - oh, did someone
say Java ? *grins*.
Gruss
H.
--
Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut
HRK
26 Aug
26 Aug
1:08 p.m.
At 07:25 PM 8/26/98 +1, you wrote:
Cross platform development was an easy thing - write one
application and let it run on PETs, Tandys, CPM/systems,
of coure on APPLE ][s and even on IBM-PCs - oh, did someone
say Java ? *grins*.
In theory. In practice, many P-System programs made calls to
platform-specific extensions to the language in question,
linking against a library of a dozen or so routines for doing
non-standard subroutines written in machine code: block
memory moves, disk block reads, etc. I don't think those
were ever standardized between platforms.
You can't take the average clone of Pacman or whatever from an
Apple II P-System and run it on another system unless it was
completely pure - poking video memory ain't pure.
As for Java, most backgrounders on its history are sure to
acknowledge the debt to the P-System, although it didn't really
take off. It was, of course, one of the three OSes offered
for the original IBM PC, along with PC-DOS and CP/M-86.
I can still run the circa 1984 Pecan version of the P-System
in a DOS window under WinNT.
See my web page for a history of the UCSD P-System. I'd love
to get a Microengine.
- John
Jefferson Computer Museum <http://www.threedee.com/jcm>
9622
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franke＠sbs.de -
jfoust＠threedee.com