10 Sep
2022
10 Sep
'22
1:39 a.m.
Paul Winalski and Bakul Shah commented on bit addressable machines
on the TUHS list recently. From Blaauw and Brooks' excellent
Computer Architecture book
http://www.math.utah.edu/pub/tex/bib/master.html#Blaauw:1997:CAC
on page 98, I find
> ...
> The earliest computer with bit resolution is the [IBM 7030] Stretch.
> The Burroughs B1700 (1972) and CDC STAR100 (1973) are later examples.
>
> Bit resolution is costly in format space, since it uses a maximum
> number of bits for address and length specification. Sharpening
> resolution from the byte to the bit costs the same as increasing
> address-space size eight-fold.
>
> Since almost all storage realizations are organized as matrices,
> bit resolution is also expensive in time or equipment.
> ...
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Nelson H. F. Beebe Tel: +1 801 581 5254 -
- University of Utah -
- Department of Mathematics, 110 LCB Internet e-mail: beebe(a)math.utah.edu -
- 155 S 1400 E RM 233 beebe(a)acm.org beebe(a)computer.org -
- Salt Lake City, UT 84112-0090, USA URL: http://www.math.utah.edu/~beebe/ -
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10 Sep
10 Sep
2:27 a.m.
New subject: Does anybody know the etymology of the term "word" as in collection of bits?
On Sep 9, 2022, at 12:39 PM, Nelson H. F. Beebe <beebe(a)math.utah.edu> wrote:
Paul Winalski and Bakul Shah commented on bit addressable machines
on the TUHS list recently. From Blaauw and Brooks' excellent
Computer Architecture book
http://www.math.utah.edu/pub/tex/bib/master.html#Blaauw:1997:CAC
on page 98, I find
>> ...
>> The earliest computer with bit resolution is the [IBM 7030] Stretch.
>> The Burroughs B1700 (1972) and CDC STAR100 (1973) are later examples.
>>
>> Bit resolution is costly in format space, since it uses a maximum
>> number of bits for address and length specification. Sharpening
>> resolution from the byte to the bit costs the same as increasing
>> address-space size eight-fold.
>>
>> Since almost all storage realizations are organized as matrices,
>> bit resolution is also expensive in time or equipment.
>> ...
And yet according to Wilner's article "the B1700 appears to
require less than half the memory needed by byte-oriented
systems to represent programs. Comparisons with word-oriented
systems are even more favorable."
Figure 9 shows sample sizes for Cobol, Fortran and RPG II programs
comparing B1700 code sizes with other systems. I was surprised to
see this but didn't look further.
https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/1479992.1480060
From the same paper
DESIGN OBJECTIVE
Burroughs B1700 is a protean attempt to completely vanquish
procrustean structures, to give 100 percent variability, or
the appearance of no inherent structure. Without inherent
structure, any definable language can be efficiently used
for computing. There are no word sizes or data
formats—operands may be any shape or size, without loss of
efficiency; there are no a priori instructions—machine
operations may be any function, in any form, without loss
of efficiency; configuration limits, while not totally
removable, can be made to exist only as points of "graceful
degradation" of performance; modularity may be increased,
to allow miniconfigurations and supercomputers using the
same components.
3:12 a.m.
New subject: Does anybody know the etymology of the term "word" as in collection of bits?
On Fri, 9 Sept 2022 at 16:28, Bakul Shah <bakul(a)iitbombay.org> wrote:
On Sep 9, 2022, at 12:39 PM, Nelson H. F. Beebe
<beebe(a)math.utah.edu>
wrote:
The level of florid language in that paper is truly impressive.
This appears to be an early implementation of intermediate language
representation. I gather by its relative level of success (I had not heard
of it until now) that it suffered from many of the common performance
problems of such machines (Java bytecode, the Transmeta CPU, etc.) and did
not succeed in the marketplace.
-Henry
Paul Winalski and Bakul Shah commented on bit addressable machines
on the TUHS list recently. From Blaauw and Brooks' excellent
Computer Architecture book
http://www.math.utah.edu/pub/tex/bib/master.html#Blaauw:1997:CAC
on page 98, I find
>> ...
>> The earliest computer with bit resolution is the [IBM 7030] Stretch.
>> The Burroughs B1700 (1972) and CDC STAR100 (1973) are later examples.
>>
>> Bit resolution is costly in format space, since it uses a maximum
>> number of bits for address and length specification. Sharpening
>> resolution from the byte to the bit costs the same as increasing
>> address-space size eight-fold.
>>
>> Since almost all storage realizations are organized as matrices,
>> bit resolution is also expensive in time or equipment.
>> ...
And yet according to Wilner's article "the B1700 appears to
require less than half the memory needed by byte-oriented
systems to represent programs. Comparisons with word-oriented
systems are even more favorable."
Figure 9 shows sample sizes for Cobol, Fortran and RPG II programs
comparing B1700 code sizes with other systems. I was surprised to
see this but didn't look further.
https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/1479992.1480060
From the same paper
DESIGN OBJECTIVE
Burroughs B1700 is a protean attempt to completely vanquish
procrustean structures, to give 100 percent variability, or
the appearance of no inherent structure. Without inherent
structure, any definable language can be efficiently used
for computing. There are no word sizes or data
formats—operands may be any shape or size, without loss of
efficiency; there are no a priori instructions—machine
operations may be any function, in any form, without loss
of efficiency; configuration limits, while not totally
removable, can be made to exist only as points of "graceful
degradation" of performance; modularity may be increased,
to allow miniconfigurations and supercomputers using the
same components.
3:44 a.m.
New subject: Does anybody know the etymology of the term "word" as in collection of bits?
On Fri, 9 Sep 2022, Bakul Shah wrote:
And yet according to Wilner's article "the
B1700 appears to require less
than half the memory needed by byte-oriented systems to represent
programs. Comparisons with word-oriented systems are even more
favorable."
The Burroughs series were beautiful machines; the hardware ran native
ALGOL (and thus were perfect); my favourite "B" still remains the B1500.
Things went downhill after the unholy alliance betwixt M$ and Inhell...
Figure 9 shows sample sizes for Cobol, Fortran and RPG
II programs
comparing B1700 code sizes with other systems. I was surprised to
see this but didn't look further.
COBOL? FORTRAN? RPG? Those are all swear words to me :-)
-- Dave
7:49 a.m.
New subject: Obscene languages (was: Does anybody know the etymology of the term "word" as in collection of bits?)
On Saturday, 10 September 2022 at 7:44:57 +1000, Dave Horsfall wrote:
COBOL? FORTRAN? RPG? Those are all swear words to
me :-)
Is this an indirect reference to the "Programmer's ABC" in the March
1976 issue of Datamation? I have a copy of the lot at
http://www.lemis.com/grog/Humour/ABC.php, but the one I think you're
referring to is:
L is for language; use these three.
Cobol, Fortran, RPG.
Avoid all others, friend, and shun
Those with the suffix "L slash I."
And yes, I share your sentiment.
Greg
--
Sent from my desktop computer.
Finger grog(a)lemis.com for PGP public key.
See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
This message is digitally signed. If your Microsoft mail program
reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA.php
834
days inactive
835
days old
4 comments
5 participants
participants (5)
-
Bakul Shah -
Dave Horsfall -
Greg 'groggy' Lehey -
Henry Bent -
Nelson H. F. Beebe