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Aucbvax.5104 fa.works utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!works Wed Nov 11 02:28:24 1981 WorkS Digest V1 #34 >From JSol@RUTGERS Wed Nov 11 01:52:06 1981 WorkS Digest Wednesday, 11 Nov 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 34

Today's Topics: Small Operating Systems Portable SmallTalk System Query - Real Experiences S-Machine Programming For The Future ----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 9 November 1981 0756-EST (Monday) From: Hank Walker at CMU-10A (C410DW60) Subject: more on VMS

When VMS was first being written, they had a goal to fit it into 64Kbytes. Since current versions lock 800-1000 pages to VMS, they have obviously gone way beyond this. But the size constraint may be an additional reason to scrimp on the user interface. Someone now stand up and say that UNIX is small. Yes, but its user interface is no better, and VMS provides more capabilities.

[There is also a discussion of VMS's user interface in HUMAN-NETS. I would suggest that you address any further discussion on that particular topic to HUMAN-NETS@AI -JSOL]

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Date: 9 November 1981 1537-EST (Monday) From: Mark.Tucker at CMU-10A Subject: Portable Smalltalk System Message-Id: <09NOV81 MT71@CMU-10A 153741>

The best way to obtain a portable Smalltalk system would be to code the Smalltalk virtual machine in some suitable algorithmic language: C would be fine. Then, get the rest of the environment by importing the Smalltalk virtual image from PARC. By maintaining compatibility with the Virtual Machine, all software developed under the portable system would be valid when the a personal S-machine is eventually perched by our desks.

Even though Xerox expects the Smalltalk virtual machine to be microcoded, most implementations will face similiar problems detailing the way the VM maintains data structures in a byte-aligned memory space. A well written HLL VM implementation would serve as a guideline for microcode writers. Perhaps,like Xerox did with BCPL on the Alto, these HLL procedures could be subsumed into microcode as time and microstore space would allow.

Finally, I think we want the underlying power of Smalltalk to be available in some measure on standard 24x80 CRTs. I know this is blasphemey, but it will be a very long time before you have a bit-map system at home and at work. So we should start today to consider how we will have to limit the amount of information contained by a Smalltalk display so that it will fit in 2K characters. About the only display format a "portable" Smalltalk system could provide would be such a restricted, 24x80 one.

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Date: Monday, 9 November 1981 21:13-PST From: WANCHO at DARCOM-KA Cc: WANCHO at DARCOM-KA, ARMTE at OFFICE-8 Subject: Real World Decisions

It seems that the current discussion, though very interesting, has gone astray from what we have to consider as today's real problems in selecting a workstation configuration of modest cost.

At the risk of provoking wild flaming (or utter silence), we would like to solicit some opinions/advice on the situation we are faced with right now:

We need to gather some hard experiences with small 4-6 user 8 or 16-bit micros of the Z80 CP/M-based or LSI 11/23/24 varieties, respectively. These systems are to be used in an environment which will crudely communicate in a batch fashion to send and receive mail from a central site. We have plenty of experience with a multi-processor CP/M system, and we have all of the correspondence of the recent UNIX vs. CP/M discussion. What we don't have is any experience with RT-11 that one user is strongly pushing with seemingly convincing arguments to the novice potential user.

One of his major points is that there is a large amount of free software available to run on it. There is also a large amount of software already designed to interface with VT-52-like terminals. What is not certain is the availability of a decent word processor...

Our concerns are mainly centered around our bias to the speed/response-time advantage obtained by using a multi-processor over the small-scale timesharing of something like an LSI 11 running RT-11. Secondly, we need to know what compiler are available besides FORTRAN and COBOL. Pascal, C are two others that come to mind.

Now I know that the machines discussed appear to be a step backward in the high technology discussions carried on here, but we need to know alot about a cost-effective approach without getting trapped in either an obsolete technology or a flashy new one which may not get off the ground.

Please be sure to include ARMTE@OFFICE-8 in your replies.

Thanks, Frank

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Date: 10 Nov 1981 (Tuesday) 1706-EST From: KENDALL at HARV-10 Subject: S-machine cc: KENDALL at HARV-10, Dreifus at Wharton-10

Re Dreifus's speculation on the "S-machine": the Xerox workstations ARE microprogrammed to fit the language being used. There are "Smalltalk bytecodes" and "Mesa bytecodes", and probably many others, implemented in microcode. -- Sam

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Date: 10 Nov 1981 (Tuesday) 1707-EST From: KENDALL at HARV-10 Subject: Programming of the future? cc: KENDALL at HARV-10

This is in response to Dreifus's question on the programming of future workstations, and SSteinberg's letter "New programming styles on Work Stations".

I found the question too vague even as a topic for speculation. SStenberg's response was somewhat specific, but contained no arguments, only naked speculation. Furthermore, it did not specify whose workstations it meant; and neither did Driefus's question.

This implies a belief that all workstations will share the advances in programming of today and the future. Surely no one would argue that most current computers are even close to the state-of-the-art, in programming environments or languages; they use something like OS/360 and COBOL. But workstations are surely at the forefront of innovation-- the existence of this digest implies it.

And so Xerox is. But although they have had their Altos for ten years, the only commercial product to come out of that line of research has been the Star, which is a word processor (a great one, to be sure) and office filing system, not a full programming workstation. Perhaps most work- stations will be like the Star, running slick special-purpose packages, as SSteinberg suggests. But I fear that Apollo-like stations will be dominant.

My purpose here is not to insult the Apollo. Apollo, Inc. itself projects that 95% of its sales will be to engineering firms and such using FORTRAN; this type of customer does not appreciate or want programming innovations. The Apollo programming environment is very primitive--indeed, the Apollo system programmers had never seen a Xerox workstation when they wrote the Apollo software. Note also that the Apollo is the most sophisticated general-purpose workstation commer- cially available.

To summarize, I see the possibility for widespread better "programming of the future", but I fear that the mistakes of the past will continue to be perpetuated; and I see evidence for this perpetuation.

-- Sam

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