18 Jun
1999
18 Jun
'99
2:13 p.m.
--- Tony Duell <ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
After someone else asked:
VMS (V5.X and before, for sure) came with an assembler. Compilers were
always extra. At least the engineers stuck it to the marketing types when
the marketing types wanted to charge extra for *run-time* libraries for
the various languages. The engineers wrote a system utility (CUSPS, as they
were called by DEC - I forget exactly what it stands for) in each of the
languages DEC shipped so that the runtimes would have to ship with the OS,
not as a seperate product. ISTR that the error log analyzer is written in
PL/1, for example.
Solaris 2.x never came with a C compiler, but SunOS (BSD-based) did.
AmigaDOS 1.0 came with ABasic, 1.1 and later came with AmigaBASIC (M$). The
assembler and C compiler, etc., were always extra. After 1987, AmigaDOS
came with AREXX. At least the Amiga, after 1.3, came with MicroEMACS as
an alternative to the crappy standard editor.
-ethan
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After playing
with BeOS a while something occurred to me. Does anyone
remember at what point operating systems stopped coming with development
tools?
I wasn't aware that they had :-). At least Linux, *BSD, VMS (I think),
etc come with compilers. 
18 Jun
18 Jun
2:25 p.m.
VMS (V5.X and before, for sure) came with an
assembler. Compilers were
always extra. At least the engineers stuck it to the marketing types when
the marketing types wanted to charge extra for *run-time* libraries for
the various languages. The engineers wrote a system utility (CUSPS, as they
were called by DEC - I forget exactly what it stands for) in each of the
Commonly Used System Program. Xerox used the same term, AFAIK. They might
have gotten it from DEC (they also wrote a timesharing system independent
of, but based on, TOPS-10). I thought there was another origin for the term
(a university?) but the Jargon File says no.
_Anyway_... do you know anything about BLISS? DEC people seem to have
complained about it, as if it was unpopular within DEC.
-- Derek
7:36 p.m.
At 16:25 18/06/99 -0700, Derek Peschel wrote:
_Anyway_... do you know anything about BLISS? DEC
people seem to have
complained about it, as if it was unpopular within DEC.
What would you like to know? I started using BLISS on a DECsystem-10 in
1975 or 1976. BLISS was written under the guidance of William Wulf at CMU.
I've just looked at my copies of the source and the compiler I/O module
(written in Macro-10) is dated 1972.
I'm assuming BLISS was written to investigate new techniques in compiler
optimization and then became a tool used by the PDP-10/20 community. It was
certainly used within Digital to write parts of the new linker
(surprisingly called LINK) and also the FORTRAN compiler.
A new verson of BLISS called BLISS-11 was created (for the PDP-11) and a
cross-compiler written. This project is documented in the book "The Design
of an Optimizing Compiler" which makes interesting reading.
Eventaully BLISS-10 (the orginal version) became BLISS-36 and yet another
version BLISS-32 was created for the VAX. This required considerable
extensions to the language as BLISS-10 was designed for a hardware
architecture where the addressable unit (the word) could contain an
address, not quite the same for a byte oriented system like the VAX.
I've heard that Bliss was not liked within Digital. I'm assuming some
aspects of NIH along with support issues. Perhaps someone who was there
might like to comment?
Huw Davies | e-mail: Huw.Davies(a)latrobe.edu.au
Information Technology Services | Phone: +61 3 9479 1550 Fax: +61 3 9479
1999
La Trobe University | "If God had wanted soccer played in the
Melbourne Australia 3083 | air, the sky would be painted green"
7:22 p.m.
At 16:13 18/06/99 -0700, Ethan Dicks wrote:
VMS (V5.X and before, for sure) came with an assembler.
Compilers were
always extra. At least the engineers stuck it to the marketing types when
the marketing types wanted to charge extra for *run-time* libraries for
the various languages. The engineers wrote a system utility (CUSPS, as they
were called by DEC - I forget exactly what it stands for) in each of the
languages DEC shipped so that the runtimes would have to ship with the OS,
not as a seperate product. ISTR that the error log analyzer is written in
PL/1, for example.
I think VMS has always come with an assembler (I did a lot of assembly
language programming in 1981 under something like v2.4).
CUSP is something like Commonly Used System (Software?) Program.
I'm not sure about the error log analyzer but certainly part (if not all)
of the monitor program is written in PL/1. (Monitor monitors the
performance of a VMS system and is not to be confused with The Monitor
which was the system for a DECsystem-10).
Huw Davies | e-mail: Huw.Davies(a)latrobe.edu.au
Information Technology Services | Phone: +61 3 9479 1550 Fax: +61 3 9479
1999
La Trobe University | "If God had wanted soccer played in the
Melbourne Australia 3083 | air, the sky would be painted green"
9145
days inactive
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days old
3 comments
3 participants
participants (3)
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dpeschel＠u.washington.edu -
ethan_dicks＠yahoo.com -
H.Davies＠latrobe.edu.au