[TUHS] TUHS Digest, Vol 33, Issue 5

Mon Aug 6 20:50:50 AEST 2018

well spec’ed machines where more common in the past. we had all the source for the interdata 3210 at college.

we had the edition 7 source, the driver source, the diagnostic tape source, and even  all the schematics.

two of the lecturers even upgraded it from 1mb to 4mb of RAM, complete with address decoders on their backs with their legs in the air.

-Steve

> On 6 Aug 2018, at 03:00, tuhs-request at minnie.tuhs.org wrote:
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> Today's Topics:
> 
>   1. Re: In Memoriam: Per Brinch Hansen (Perry E. Metzger)
>   2. Latest Kernighan interview on Youtube (Warren Toomey)
>   3. In Memoriam: Edsger Dijkstra, and happy birthday Jon Postel!
>      (Dave Horsfall)
>   4. Re: In Memoriam: Edsger Dijkstra,    and happy birthday Jon
>      Postel! (Noel Chiappa)
> 
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2018 19:18:18 -0400
> From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry at piermont.com>
> To: Doug McIlroy <doug at cs.dartmouth.edu>
> Cc: tuhs at tuhs.org
> Subject: Re: [TUHS] In Memoriam: Per Brinch Hansen
> Message-ID: <20180805191818.0ac05b0f at jabberwock.cb.piermont.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
> 
> On Thu, 02 Aug 2018 08:44:56 -0400 Doug McIlroy
> <doug at cs.dartmouth.edu> wrote:
>> A tangential connection to early Unix experience:
>> 
>> My collection of early computer manuals includes Brinch Hansen's
>> manual for the RC 4000, which stands out for its precise
>> description of the CPU logic--in Algol 60! It's the only manual I
>> have seen that offers a good-to-the-last-bit formal description of
>> the hardware.
>> 
>> DEC presented something of the sort for the PDP-11, but punted where
>> the woods got thick. When I wanted to know how they computed the
>> last bit of floating-point results, I got no satisfaction. Amidst a
>> thorough description of addressing came this formulation of the
>> actual computation: "form floating point result".
> 
> For those that are familiar with the RISC V architecture, there's a
> formal specification of the architecture that was done in a system
> built on Coq, and also a fully formally verified translation of the
> specification into RTL. (The spec didn't include floating point as of
> about a year ago but it may by now.)
> 
> A good overview of the system involved is here:
> 
> http://plv.csail.mit.edu/kami/papers/icfp17.pdf
> 
> Followups might belong on the coff list, not sure.
> 
> Perry
> -- 
> Perry E. Metzger        perry at piermont.com
> 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 2
> Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2018 09:53:19 +1000
> From: Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org>
> To: tuhs at tuhs.org
> Subject: [TUHS] Latest Kernighan interview on Youtube
> Message-ID: <20180805235319.GA14811 at minnie.tuhs.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
> 
> in 3 parts:
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmYhR8cUX90
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVpRj3Po6K4
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6vtRm5M8I0
> 
> Cheers, Warren
> 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 3
> Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2018 10:04:17 +1000 (EST)
> From: Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org>
> To: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society <tuhs at tuhs.org>
> Subject: [TUHS] In Memoriam: Edsger Dijkstra, and happy birthday Jon
>    Postel!
> Message-ID:
>    <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1808060955320.79568 at aneurin.horsfall.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed
> 
> What a weird day...
> 
> We lost computer pioneer Edsger Dijkstra in 2002; he gave us ALGOL, 
> structured programming, semaphores, and ranted against the GOTO statement 
> (much to the distress of the Fortranites and their spaghetti coding). 
> Oh, and a certain Prof. Goto used to complain that everybody wanted to 
> eliminate him :-)
> 
> However, we gained Jon Postel in 1943; with umpteen RFCs to his name, he 
> could pretty much be described as the Father of the Internet.
> 
> -- 
> Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)  "Those who don't understand security will suffer."
> 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 4
> Date: Sun,  5 Aug 2018 21:15:45 -0400 (EDT)
> From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
> To: tuhs at tuhs.org
> Cc: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu
> Subject: Re: [TUHS] In Memoriam: Edsger Dijkstra,    and happy birthday
>    Jon Postel!
> Message-ID: <20180806011545.29C1F18C09A at mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
> 
>> From: Dave Horsfall
> 
>> However, we gained Jon Postel in 1943; with umpteen RFCs to his name, he
>> could pretty much be described as the Father of the Internet.
> 
> The problem with using the number of documents as a gauge for that is that Jon
> often acted as scribe, so that for many things published under his name, he
> was acting more as editor.
> 
> As to who (if anyone) does deserve that title, I'm also not sure about the
> importance of Cerf and Kahn. NOTE: I am not saying they _didn't_ make the key
> contribution - I just haven't looked into it in enough detail to say.
> 
> For example, before the TCP/IP effort got rolling, there was something called
> the International Packet Network Working Group (INWG) which had a big role,
> but which has been poorly documented. There's a note called "The Internet: On
> its International Origins and Collaborative Vision" by Rhonda Hauben,
> available here:
> 
>  http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/misc/haubenpap.rtf
> 
> which covers it some, and there's a more recent thing by Alex Mackenzie which
> is probably better, but I'm too lazy to go find it.
> 
> Louis Pouzin (or whoever it was at CYCLADES who actually had the idea to move
> the reliability out of the packet switches, and into the hosts), also would
> have a good claim to the title.
> 
> 
> Anyway, sorry for the offtopic, but my 'fake history' alarm went off...
> 
>    Noel
> 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
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> ------------------------------
> 
> End of TUHS Digest, Vol 33, Issue 5
> ***********************************