
Handwritten coding sheets for Burroughs 205 Algol (1960) [pdf] - defvar
http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Knuth_Don_X4100/PDF_index/k-2-pdf/k-2-c1039-ALGOL-B205.pdf
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daly
Yeah I used to code like that a lot. The next step was to work out the "core
layout" for the "overlay loader". There wasn't enough memory to keep the whole
program resident at once so you had to invoke the loader to bring in the next
piece.

There was a "front panel" on every computer that showed the registers and
memory. You could "single step" through your program to see what was in the
registers. When DEC shipped the PDP-11 series the front panel was gone. I
didn't know how I was going to debug. (Imagine single-stepping a program that
runs on a 3 GHz machine.)

Next task was to transfer the program to paper tape using a piece of plastic
with a slot for the tape, 8 holes, and a slim rod to punch out the bits. Be
sure to leave a couple extra bytes so you can "hot patch" the program. This
involved changing the bits into a jump to an address where you had punched new
instructions.

Oddly though, I don't see the literate programming markup. I guess that's on
the next page.

~~~
aap_
> When DEC shipped the PDP-11 series the front panel was gone

That's not true. The earlier models definitely had front panels. Only the very
latest had reduced or no front panels.

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defvar
Another interesting read related: [http://ed-thelen.org/comp-
hist/B5000-AlgolRWaychoff.html#7](http://ed-thelen.org/comp-
hist/B5000-AlgolRWaychoff.html#7)

~~~
nickpsecurity
Thank you for that link because this quote is _so good!_

"It was becoming clear to me that Dr. Forsythe and Dr. Harroit wanted a B5000.
But the best that Burroughs would offer was about a 40% discount. IBM was
offering them the world to take an IBM 7090. Finally, IBM said that they would
give Stanford the 7090 for free plus a gift of $900000 that could be used to
build a new computer center. Stanford had a Burroughs 220 and IBM was
determined to dislodge us. Stanford accepted the offer and used $400000 to
build the computer center and $500000 to buy a B5000. So IBM had unwittingly
paid Stanford to buy a B5000, much to their dismay. "

First, a nice illustration of shady practices that get shoddy tech to dominant
market share. Windows had its share, too. Second, a rare illustration of it
backfiring in an epic way. That the inferior, pretend-to-be-first, mainframe
company bought them The Real Deal by mistake is just hard to top. It's better
than when Microsoft was called out on NT Server's alleged superiority over
AS/400's by pointing out they ran their whole business on an AS/400\. These
moments just don't happen enough.

The Fortran vs Algol vs people who open mail moment was great, too.

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fernly
Another pretty good quote about the young Don Knuth:

"We had written our [compiler] in STAR 0, the only assembler that Burroughs
supported on the 205. Our compiler took one hour and 45 minutes to assemble.
The first week of don's project he spent in writing his own assembler. He
could assemble his compiler in 45 minutes. We were green with envy."

That's practical, right? He had limited computer time, and since every change
meant a re-assembly, the obvious answer to quicker turnaround was to write a
faster assembler...

~~~
nickpsecurity
Yeah, that's a good one. I wonder if something like HLA would've helped them
back then:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Level_Assembly](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Level_Assembly)

Maybe it with s-expressions and Wirth-style compilation. Might have made those
iterations pretty fast with lots of efficiency. The HLL's too heavy to compile
could be mapped to it by hand if they wanted.

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defvar
more context here:
[http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/ALGOL/algol58im...](http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/ALGOL/algol58impl/#Burroughs_205)

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sigjuice
Thanks! This looks really cool.

 _Kimpel has written an emulator for the Burroughs 205, and has been able to
execute two versions of Knuth 's Algol 58 compiler on the emulator._

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OneOneOneOne
He talks about this here...
[http://www.webofstories.com/play/donald.knuth/27](http://www.webofstories.com/play/donald.knuth/27)

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taeric
The thing I love about the handwritten sheets is the small things that aren't
perfect. The drift of the commands to the right as they go down the page. The
strikethrough of sections.

I don't know how to explain it, typically, but notebooks are incredibly
intimidating when the examples you see will be perfect end products. Seeing a
few of the sheets that made it into the trash are really instructive.

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pjmlp
Great information both from the linked document and the fellow posts, thanks
to all for sharing.

I follow with great interest everything Burroughs related, specially their
approaches to safe programming.

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nickpsecurity
You got to see the one linked in the parent to the comment below. I'm linking
the comment since it has the highlight:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12466890](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12466890)

~~~
pjmlp
Thanks, I had read it already. :)

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mimo777
A thing of beauty. This guy is so much smarter than I am.

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penthi
Lol pp41 "..GO TO HELL"

