[TUHS] Looking back to 1981 - what pascal was popular on what unix?

Clem Cole clemc at ccc.com
Sun Jan 30 05:59:02 AEST 2022


On Fri, Jan 28, 2022 at 6:08 PM Will Senn <will.senn at gmail.com> wrote:

> 1. What edition of UNIX were they likely to be using?
>
Already answered ...

> 2. What versions of "Standard Pascal" were in vogue on UNIX at the time
> (1981)?
>
Remember in 1981, the 'Pascal Standard' was still in flight. ISO 7185 was
1983 and Pascal really does not standardize enough that real
portability was possible until the 1990 version and people actually started
implementing compilers that obeyed it.

>
> 3. What combinations of UNIX/Pascal were popular?
>
Depends the implementation...  there were a number of them... there were
the ones I had at that time

   - UCB Pascal -- pi being the most popular for the PDP-11, and later pc
   for the Vax
   - VU Pascal for the 11
   - The Zurich P4 compiler was around and of course eventually begat UCSD,
   but I don't remember that it was directly made to run on Unix[I did not
   have one], although it may/must have been.
   - The Similer2 compiler for 68000 [was one of Wirth's -- I think was the
   basis for the compiler that they used for Lilith - or maybe it was a fork
   that produced the Lilith and the Similer2 compiler -- I don't remember].
   That showed up on a couple of the 68K workstations in 1981.
   - Andy's Amsterdam Toolkit
   - There was a compiler that the RTS folks had at MIT, but I don't know
   its origin or how complete it was.
   - Purdue had something that had started on the CDCs -- that went to
   Tektronix and was the basis for some of the stuff the Logical
   Analizer folks were using.  It was cross compiler that ran on Unix and
   generated 8-bit microprocessor code for embedded systems.
   - Per Brinch Hansen had a Pascal that we was pushing, but I don't think
   he even moved it to Unix
   - Plus, the "Tunis" folks in Toronto had a Concurrent-Pascal and a
   UNIX-like system that ran on PDP-11s.

And the problem was 'standard' - lots of people messed with it and every
Pascal was a little different.  In 1981 at one of the HP/Tektronix
[Hatfield/McCoy parties - Stienhart probably remembers], Mike Zuhl, TW Cook
and I counted 14 different "Tek Pascal's" and over 25 "HP Basic's" -- each
was a little different.

UCSD Pascal was its own system, not Unix [sort of like Smalltalk -- a
walled garden within itself].  They started with the P4 compiler but they
made it work on 8-bit systems, so while it was around, it was not a UNIX
Pascal >>and<< it the Standard was still in flight.  The OMSI Pascal
compiler was popular for the PDP-11's, but it was RT-11 and RSX [maybe
RSTS, but I'm not sure].  The Zurich PDP-10 Compiler was very popular in
PDP-10 land.  DEC released the VAX/pascal for VMS, which they eventually
brought to Ultrix and Tru64.   I believe that that was a scratch rewrite
and did not use P4 or anything from the PDP-10s or CDC systems before it.

One of the big issues with P4 based stuff is that the original P2 porting
kit from Wirth assumed a 40 bit integer of the CDC system.   Making it work
with a 36 bit world was a tad easier than the 32 or 16 bit world, much less
the 8-bit micros.   Folks like DEC, UCB and Amsterdam which started over
with a new front end, tended to have an easier go of it and often had
better compiler tools [which were mostly C based BTW for UNIX and a
combination of Pascal and BLISS at DEC].

Sun later brought the UCB PI and PC to the SunOS, but pls Rob G/Larry
correct me here - I think they later did their own compiler when they did
their new C and Fortran.  Masscomp started with the Similer2 compiler, but
eventually did a new front end that matched their C and Fortran like DEC
had.


As for SWTinP running with FreePascal.  I looked into it and decided it was
doable, but never went very fair with my investigation since the need for
it, was less.  Back in the days of VMS, Pr1meOS and the like, SWT was a
Godsend.  But Windows and like have real Unix subsystems, so I never really
was motivated other than pure curiosity.

>
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