🚀 go-pugleaf

In a recent article a577@mindlink.UUCP (Curt Sampson) writes:
>> pk...@axion.bt.co.uk writes:
>>         ... and wasn't the debugger on TOP-20 called `ddt' !!
>
>The debugger in CP/M was called DDT.  It allegedly stood for "Dynamic Debugging
>Tool."  Yeah, right.  :-)

DDT dates back at least to the PDP-1 (1962 or maybe a little earlier), where
it was the successor to MICROFLIT.  MICROFLIT was a port of the TX-0 program
of the same name, which was the (obvious) successor of FLIT.  Don't ask me
what FLIT stood for; maybe the author's name was Henry.

DDT was sufficiently complete by early 1962 that it was formally documented
at MIT (memo PDP-4-1, dated 15 February 1962); the memo defines the acronym as
"DEC Debugging Tape".  Yes, I'm reading from that memo as I write this.
(The only way to run a program on the PDP-1 was to use either paper tape or
the console switches.  None of this wimpy stuff like mag tape or disks...
thus the word "tape" in many acronyms.)

MICROFLIT was the only debugger cited in the first memo from the PDP-1 support
people at MIT dated 28 September 1961.

The above material will be on the final exam.

Joe Morris