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Aucbvax.6445 fa.works utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!works Tue Mar 9 16:47:33 1982 Re: [Lars.Ericson at Cmu-10a: Apollo/Clever?] >From MAGUIRE@Utah-20 Mon Mar 8 16:05:43 1982 To the best of my knowledge (having seen the sources for the previous iteration of system software (i.e. not the latest release but the fall release)) the sources were written in: PASCAL - most of the OS RATFOR - many of the tools are from the SOFTWARE TOOLS collection (this may be where you got the idea that they were written in FORTRAN) ASSEMBLY - a trivial fraction of the code, in fact I was trying to produce assembly code for their assembler (as output of the SYSLISP compiler effort here) and did not have a manual for this assembler and found it difficult because there were so few examples to follow. The majority of the assembly code is concerned with device drivers and forcing things to hardware page boundaries and then it calls the actual program which is usually a PASCAL routine.

So far, despite some rough edges, the system has been quite reasonable to use, and has a working multiprocess OS that supports real windows (unlike the fake windows on the PERQ - which do look nice, but presently can't have a processing running in each of them). It is unfortunate that your narrow linguistic understanding has blinded you to the realities of existing systems. It should be noted that the PRIME Computer systems early OS, which was largely take from and patterned after MULTICS was implemented in FORTRAN, and supported a virtual memory system with imbedded OS, and many of the other nice features of MULTICS with a very large address space for the time (early 70's). I think that given the efforts of groups at Brown Univ., Yale, Utah, Caltech, etc. You will see working systems which support C and LISP; as components in CAD/CAM, CAI, personal algebra machines, etc. Until such time as LISP systems are readily available for purchase for the 68000, as current PASCAL, FORTRAN, and C compilers are, it seems to be a perfectly reasonable "clever, conservative system" design which sells what is available rather than trying to sell what is not available as several other companies are presently doing! Chip

ps To other Works readers: Sorry for the flame but I am very disappointed by many of the companies which are selling software and hardware which does not exist yet. -------

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