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Cyhist Jan 21 1997 D
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Date: Tue, 21 Jan 1997 16:07:08 -0800
Reply-To: les@cs.stanford.edu
Sender: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@SJUVM.STJOHNS.EDU>
From: Les Earnest <les@Steam.Stanford.EDU>
Subject: CYHIST: emulation and Microsoft history
X-To: johnson@rahul.net
In-Reply-To: Suzanne Johnson's message of Mon, 20 Jan 1997 22:41:15 -0800
<199701211923.LAA11215@Steam.Stanford.EDU>
______________________________________________________________________
Community Memory: Discussion List on the History of Cyberspace ______________________________________________________________________
Suzanne Johnson writes:
Bob Bickford <rab@well.com> came across the following quote and asks if emulation goes back further than Microsoft: [. . .]
Also, during the early 1970's, Mainsail was developed. Mainsail was (actually, is) a machine independent language which eventually had a full suite of cross compilers which made it possible to compile code for any of its supported machines on any of the other supported machines. Mainsail got its start as a PhD thesis by Clark Wilcox at Stanford University. After he graduated, a company known as Xidak was started in the SF Bay Area. Mainsail is now a product of Xidak, and as far as I know, is still available.
Yes, Mainsail was one of several products whose development started at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab. In the late 1960s several PhD students there developed the SAIL compiler, which was an extension of Algol-58 and ran on the DEC-10. Clark Wilcox then used that as a starting point for his transportable Mainsail language, with various cross compilers. I'm pleased to see that, according to my local telephone directory, Xidak still exists.
There have been many computer emulations created over the years. For example, beginning in 1959 I programmed the TX-0 computer at MIT to emulate a machine that worked with two dimensional arrays of bits instead of words. I later redid it for the TX-2 computer at MIT Lincoln Lab and wrote programs for the emulated machine that recognized cursive handwriting that had been written with a lite pen.
Yes, World, there WAS software and Computer Science before Microsoft.
With any luck there also will be software and computer science after Microsoft is dead and buried. I expect that several languages and operating systems that predate it will still be around in some form.
-Les Earnest
______________________________________________________________________
Reply-To: les@cs.stanford.edu
Sender: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@SJUVM.STJOHNS.EDU>
From: Les Earnest <les@Steam.Stanford.EDU>
Subject: CYHIST: emulation and Microsoft history
X-To: johnson@rahul.net
In-Reply-To: Suzanne Johnson's message of Mon, 20 Jan 1997 22:41:15 -0800
<199701211923.LAA11215@Steam.Stanford.EDU>
______________________________________________________________________
Community Memory: Discussion List on the History of Cyberspace ______________________________________________________________________
Suzanne Johnson writes:
Bob Bickford <rab@well.com> came across the following quote and asks if emulation goes back further than Microsoft: [. . .]
Also, during the early 1970's, Mainsail was developed. Mainsail was (actually, is) a machine independent language which eventually had a full suite of cross compilers which made it possible to compile code for any of its supported machines on any of the other supported machines. Mainsail got its start as a PhD thesis by Clark Wilcox at Stanford University. After he graduated, a company known as Xidak was started in the SF Bay Area. Mainsail is now a product of Xidak, and as far as I know, is still available.
Yes, Mainsail was one of several products whose development started at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab. In the late 1960s several PhD students there developed the SAIL compiler, which was an extension of Algol-58 and ran on the DEC-10. Clark Wilcox then used that as a starting point for his transportable Mainsail language, with various cross compilers. I'm pleased to see that, according to my local telephone directory, Xidak still exists.
There have been many computer emulations created over the years. For example, beginning in 1959 I programmed the TX-0 computer at MIT to emulate a machine that worked with two dimensional arrays of bits instead of words. I later redid it for the TX-2 computer at MIT Lincoln Lab and wrote programs for the emulated machine that recognized cursive handwriting that had been written with a lite pen.
Yes, World, there WAS software and Computer Science before Microsoft.
With any luck there also will be software and computer science after Microsoft is dead and buried. I expect that several languages and operating systems that predate it will still be around in some form.
-Les Earnest
______________________________________________________________________
