[TUHS] 1: jmp 1b

Leah Neukirchen leah at vuxu.org
Tue Oct 22 00:05:17 AEST 2019


Norman Wilson <norman at oclsc.org> writes:

> In `UNIX Assembler Reference Manual,' Dennis credits Knuth
> for numeric temporary labels, with a reference to volume 1
> of The Art of Computer Programming.
>
> I'm several thousand kilometers from my copy of Knuth (though
> rather nearer to Knuth himself, albeit not within asking
> range), so I'll leave it to others to track down the exact
> reference.

TAOCP 1 (1968), page 147:

"Local symbols have a different nature; we write, for example 2H
("2 here") in the location field, and 2F ("2 forward") or 2B
("2 backward") in the address field of a MIXAL line:

  2B means the closest previous location 2H
  2F means the closest following location 2H

[...]

The idea of local symbols was introduced by M. E. Conway in 1958,
in connection with an assembly program for the UNIVAC 1."

This is the originator of Conway's Law, btw.  I could not find
more detail about this assembler.

-- 
Leah Neukirchen  <leah at vuxu.org>  https://leahneukirchen.org/


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