<div dir="auto"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote" dir="auto"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Wed, May 8, 2024, 9:39 PM Paul McJones <<a href="mailto:paul@mcjones.org">paul@mcjones.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div style="line-break:after-white-space"><div><blockquote type="cite"><div>On Wed, 8 May 2024 14:12:15 -0400,Clem Cole <<a href="mailto:clemc@ccc.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">clemc@ccc.com</a>> wrote:</div></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br><div><span style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:13px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;text-decoration:none;float:none;display:inline!important">FWIW:  The DEC Mod-II and Mod-III</span><br style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:13px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;text-decoration:none"><span style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:13px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;text-decoration:none;float:none;display:inline!important">were new implementations from DEC WRL or SRC (I forget).  They targeted</span><br style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:13px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;text-decoration:none"><span style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:13px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;text-decoration:none;float:none;display:inline!important">Alpha and I, maybe Vax.  I'd have to ask someone like Larry Stewart or Jeff</span><br style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:13px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;text-decoration:none"><span style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:13px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;text-decoration:none;float:none;display:inline!important">Mogul who might know/remember, but I thought that the font end to the DEC</span><br style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:13px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;text-decoration:none"><span style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:13px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;text-decoration:none;float:none;display:inline!important">MOD2 compiler might have been partly based on Wirths but rewritten and by</span><br style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:13px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;text-decoration:none"><span style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:13px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;text-decoration:none;float:none;display:inline!important">the time of the MOD3 FE was a new one originally written using the previous</span><br style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:13px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;text-decoration:none"><span style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:13px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;text-decoration:none;float:none;display:inline!important">MOD2 compiler -- but I don't remember that detail.</span></div></blockquote><br></div><div>Michael Powell at DEC WRL wrote a Modula 2 compiler that generated VAX code. Here’s an extract from announcement.d accompanying a 1992 release of the compiler from <a href="http://gatekeeper.dec.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">gatekeeper.dec.com</a>:</div><div><br></div><blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 40px;border:none;padding:0px"><div>The compiler was designed and built by Michael L. Powell, and originally</div><div>released in 1984.  Joel McCormack sped the compiler up, fixed lots of bugs, and</div><div>swiped/wrote a User's Manual.  Len Lattanzi ported the compiler to the MIPS. </div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Later, Paul Rovner and others at DEC SRC designed Modula-2+ (a language extension with exceptions, threads, garbage collection, and runtime type dispatch). The Modula-2+ compiler was originally based on Powell’s compiler. Modula-2+ ran on the VAX.</div><div><br></div><div>Here’s a DEC SRC research report on Modula-2+:</div><div><a href="http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/tech_reports/SRC-RR-3.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/tech_reports/SRC-RR-3.pdf</a></div><div><br></div><div>Modula-3 was designed at DEC SRC and Olivetti Labs. It had a portable implementation (using the GCC back end) and ran on a number of machines including Alpha.</div></div></blockquote></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">FreeBSD's cvsup was written using it. The threading made it possible to make maximum use of the 56k modems of the time and speed downloads of the source changes. The port for modula-3 changed a number of time from gcc to egcs back to gcc before running out of steam...</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Warner </div><div class="gmail_quote" dir="auto"></div></div>