Patching vs. new code (was Re: Pascal not considered harmful)

[Chuck Guzis]

On 02/23/2015 09:17 PM, Ian S. King wrote:


> My first (paid) programming job was in 6800 assembler, using the Motorola
> EXORCISER system.  It took hours (as in a major part of a day, longer than
> the work day) to reassemble the entire code base, so we would patch the
> program in the PROM programmer.  We would, of course, back port the changes
> in symbolic assembler to the source, and every few days just take the
> downtime hit to rebuild the code base.  Keep in mind that this was natively
> hosted on a 6800 system.

Well, I *know* that there was a cross-assembler for 6800 code.  Even a 
moderately small minicomputer would outpace a 6800.

Patching is okay, as long as it doesn't become permanent.  I have a 
memory of 7080 COBOL production programs patched with Autocoder object. 
  Of course, nobody knew exactly what the patches did.

One of the very good reasons to run legacy programs on emulation.

I'm certain there are thousands of these stories.

--Chuck