Bell Labs.

I could never figure out how to make money with it. What "comprehensive
system" stuff did they do?

It's a string-processing (!) language used in exploring patterns, as in
language recognition. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNOBOL


Ross Ferris wrote:

Hey Will,

Good news .... you have found someone else who knows about SNOBOL
But my reference is later, "just" past punched cards, running on an
early DEC-11 on RTSE (? I just remember calling is "rastus")

One of the other software companies in town had a comprehensive system
written in Snobol - believe this may have originated from USA ...
perhaps MCBA? (Mini Computer Business Associates)

And Ross, it was RSTS on PDP-11, which we also called "ristus".

snip

Looking forward to TL Conference next week...

T

"Tony Gravagno" <address.is.in.po... at (no spam) removethis.com.invalid> wrote in
messagenews:44pre5194t1uq10hebmgqh9r7tq4bbb7bq at (no spam) 4ax.com...
snip>> I wish discussions of technology from the current millennium would> spawn so much discussion here.  I can see one of you guys trying to
sell a new application, and the prospect Googling to find out what
this Pick thing is about, only to see a bunch of people fondly talking
about punch cards.  *buzzer sounds* "Time to look elsewhere."

Looking forward to TL Conference next week...

T

snip
Interesting reaction.  I guess we are not allowed to reminisce
Just out of interest I did google as suggested and got some interesting
results from
Wikipedia, intl-spectrum, nineelms, pick911.  All people that know how to
set a good search reference to ensure high ranked hits.  Perhaps somebody
would like to pass on hints in this regard.
One disaster, Maverick which has bad links to SQL related topics instead of
the claimed pick multi-value open source project which has presumably
failed.
Peter McMurray
Of course I only looked at the first half dozen

spawn so much discussion here. I can see one of you guys trying to
sell a new application, and the prospect Googling to find out what
this Pick thing is about, only to see a bunch of people fondly talking
about punch cards. *buzzer sounds* "Time to look elsewhere."

Looking forward to TL Conference next week...

T

snip

On Nov 2, 7:14 am, Tony Gravagno<address.is.in.po... at (no spam) removethis.com.invalid> wrote:

snip



And Ross, it was RSTS on PDP-11, which we also called "ristus".

Thanks. I played with the "extended" version  RSTS/E, but it was RDOS
on the DG platform that I really worked



snip
Looking forward to TL Conference next week...

You mean "this week" ... starts Wednesday ... pocket watch & rabbit
optional .... large hat for disguise ... ESSENTIAL!



T

Bell Labs?  Yeah, I remember cancelling an interview that was setup
for me there because I didn't think it would be cool to work for the
phone company.  That's probably the biggest DUH moment of my life.
SNOBOL?  Yea, I remember it - and APL too, with the funky character
set.

And Ross, it was RSTS on PDP-11, which we also called "ristus".

For anyone who doubts we still have roots going back to punch cards,
I'll just mention that the 80 column terminal to which most of you
guys still code was intended to be compatible with Hollerith cards.  I
believe default term width for Windows Terminal and BASH is still 80.

I wish discussions of technology from the current millennium would
spawn so much discussion here.  I can see one of you guys trying to
sell a new application, and the prospect Googling to find out what
this Pick thing is about, only to see a bunch of people fondly talking
about punch cards.  *buzzer sounds* "Time to look elsewhere."

Looking forward to TL Conference next week...

T

Bill Cooke wrote:
Bell Labs.

I could never figure out how to make money with it.  What "comprehensive
system" stuff did they do?

It's a string-processing (!) language used in exploring patterns, as in
language recognition.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNOBOL

Ross Ferris wrote:

Hey Will,

Good news .... you have found someone else who knows about SNOBOL
But my reference is later, "just" past punched cards, running on an
early DEC-11 on RTSE (? I just remember calling is "rastus")

One of the other software companies in town had a comprehensive system
written in Snobol - believe this may have originated from USA ...
perhaps MCBA? (Mini Computer Business Associates)

On Nov 1, 9:27 pm, Ross Ferris <ro... at (no spam) stamina.com.au> wrote:





On Nov 2, 7:14 am, Tony Gravagno<address.is.in.po... at (no spam) removethis.com.invalid> wrote:

snip

And Ross, it was RSTS on PDP-11, which we also called "ristus".

Thanks. I played with the "extended" version  RSTS/E, but it was RDOS
on the DG platform that I really worked

snip
Looking forward to TL Conference next week...

You mean "this week" ... starts Wednesday ... pocket watch & rabbit
optional .... large hat for disguise ... ESSENTIAL!

T

I got my start on DEC PDP-11 running RSTE/E with BASIC PLUS and also
worked on the DG Nova using RDOS and Business Basic III.

Gee that seems like so long ago!

Eugene- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

In 1979 I was offered 2 jobs. One was going to be working with
networks for Woolco/Woolworth and the other was on a computer that I
had never heard of, with maintenance coming out of Cincinnati.

Oh yea, it was called a Microdata <G
Eugene

First fondly back to the ol' SJSU days... '76-'77 timeframe --
spending way too much time on a RSTS-11 & RSTS/E (when the first
choice, being the CDC PLATO, wasn't available) burning the midnight
oil and implementing multi-user games while hacking (as academically
necessary) to maintain the required system privileges against growing
egotistical fifedomes, aka admins.

"dzigray" <google at (no spam) bridge2.com> wrote in message
news:6149226a-df9b-4961-b5e8-e77eadf07c46 at (no spam) s21g2000prm.googlegroups.com...
On Nov 2, 1:42 pm, eppick77 <eppic... at (no spam) yahoo.com> wrote:
snip>.
[Un]fortunately, RSTS had two
tremendous vulnerabilities: (1) A critical bug in DEC's equivalent of
an X-ON/X-OFF flow control to their terminals (ie. flow-control states
that were "toggled" with <control>-O characters. If you jammed too
many ^O-s in a sequence, the I/O stream to the terminal would simply
get lost and start dumping system memory to the terminals -- so when
the data started to look like "streams of passwords", you simply had
to flip the printer switch on... (2) Creating any large file for
random access would never initialize it's space, so you would inherit
everything from virtual memory. A quick parse for a [1,1], [1,2],
[1,4],[10,10]... system accounts, would typically net you a system-
level account & password. If not, heck, delete the file and repeat.

snip
Dave Z.

Sounds much more complicated than the Reality. Long time ago but as I
remember it one just had to hit break as you Logged in and bingo you
dropped into Sysprog where all was available
Peter McMurray