6 Aug
2018
6 Aug
'18
4:50 p.m.
well spec’ed machines where more common in the past. we had all the source for the
interdata 3210 at college.
we had the edition 7 source, the driver source, the diagnostic tape source, and even all
the schematics.
two of the lecturers even upgraded it from 1mb to 4mb of RAM, complete with address
decoders on their backs with their legs in the air.
-Steve
On 6 Aug 2018, at 03:00, tuhs-request(a)minnie.tuhs.org
wrote:
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Today's Topics:
1. Re: In Memoriam: Per Brinch Hansen (Perry E. Metzger)
2. Latest Kernighan interview on Youtube (Warren Toomey)
3. In Memoriam: Edsger Dijkstra, and happy birthday Jon Postel!
(Dave Horsfall)
4. Re: In Memoriam: Edsger Dijkstra, and happy birthday Jon
Postel! (Noel Chiappa)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2018 19:18:18 -0400
From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry(a)piermont.com>
To: Doug McIlroy <doug(a)cs.dartmouth.edu>
Cc: tuhs(a)tuhs.org
Subject: Re: [TUHS] In Memoriam: Per Brinch Hansen
Message-ID: <20180805191818.0ac05b0f(a)jabberwock.cb.piermont.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
On Thu, 02 Aug 2018 08:44:56 -0400 Doug McIlroy
<doug(a)cs.dartmouth.edu> wrote:
A tangential connection to early Unix
experience:
My collection of early computer manuals includes Brinch Hansen's
manual for the RC 4000, which stands out for its precise
description of the CPU logic--in Algol 60! It's the only manual I
have seen that offers a good-to-the-last-bit formal description of
the hardware.
DEC presented something of the sort for the PDP-11, but punted where
the woods got thick. When I wanted to know how they computed the
last bit of floating-point results, I got no satisfaction. Amidst a
thorough description of addressing came this formulation of the
actual computation: "form floating point result".
For those that are familiar with the RISC V architecture, there's a
formal specification of the architecture that was done in a system
built on Coq, and also a fully formally verified translation of the
specification into RTL. (The spec didn't include floating point as of
about a year ago but it may by now.)
A good overview of the system involved is here:
http://plv.csail.mit.edu/kami/papers/icfp17.pdf
Followups might belong on the coff list, not sure.
Perry
--
Perry E. Metzger perry(a)piermont.com
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2018 09:53:19 +1000
From: Warren Toomey <wkt(a)tuhs.org>
To: tuhs(a)tuhs.org
Subject: [TUHS] Latest Kernighan interview on Youtube
Message-ID: <20180805235319.GA14811(a)minnie.tuhs.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
in 3 parts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmYhR8cUX90
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVpRj3Po6K4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6vtRm5M8I0
Cheers, Warren
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2018 10:04:17 +1000 (EST)
From: Dave Horsfall <dave(a)horsfall.org>
To: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society <tuhs(a)tuhs.org>
Subject: [TUHS] In Memoriam: Edsger Dijkstra, and happy birthday Jon
Postel!
Message-ID:
<alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1808060955320.79568(a)aneurin.horsfall.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed
What a weird day...
We lost computer pioneer Edsger Dijkstra in 2002; he gave us ALGOL,
structured programming, semaphores, and ranted against the GOTO statement
(much to the distress of the Fortranites and their spaghetti coding).
Oh, and a certain Prof. Goto used to complain that everybody wanted to
eliminate him :-)
However, we gained Jon Postel in 1943; with umpteen RFCs to his name, he
could pretty much be described as the Father of the Internet.
--
Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU) "Those who don't understand security will
suffer."
------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2018 21:15:45 -0400 (EDT)
From: jnc(a)mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
To: tuhs(a)tuhs.org
Cc: jnc(a)mercury.lcs.mit.edu
Subject: Re: [TUHS] In Memoriam: Edsger Dijkstra, and happy birthday
Jon Postel!
Message-ID: <20180806011545.29C1F18C09A(a)mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
From: Dave Horsfall
However, we gained Jon Postel in 1943; with
umpteen RFCs to his name, he
could pretty much be described as the Father of the Internet.
The problem with using the number of documents as a gauge for that is that Jon
often acted as scribe, so that for many things published under his name, he
was acting more as editor.
As to who (if anyone) does deserve that title, I'm also not sure about the
importance of Cerf and Kahn. NOTE: I am not saying they _didn't_ make the key
contribution - I just haven't looked into it in enough detail to say.
For example, before the TCP/IP effort got rolling, there was something called
the International Packet Network Working Group (INWG) which had a big role,
but which has been poorly documented. There's a note called "The Internet: On
its International Origins and Collaborative Vision" by Rhonda Hauben,
available here:
http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/misc/haubenpap.rtf
which covers it some, and there's a more recent thing by Alex Mackenzie which
is probably better, but I'm too lazy to go find it.
Louis Pouzin (or whoever it was at CYCLADES who actually had the idea to move
the reliability out of the packet switches, and into the hosts), also would
have a good claim to the title.
Anyway, sorry for the offtopic, but my 'fake history' alarm went off...
Noel
------------------------------
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