🚀 go-pugleaf

On 7/3/2013 9:32 PM, Gerard Schildberger wrote:
> On Wednesday, July 3, 2013 5:17:32 PM UTC-5, Peter Flass wrote:
>> I just hacked up a Wikipedia article on Viatron - anyone remember them?
>> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viatron)
>>
>> Browsing the documentation on Bitsavers it appears there isn't an
>> assembler reference.  There are lists of instructions, but nothing
>> showing the actual instruction encodings (as far a I can see, that is).
>>    I know they shipped some boxes at least, so there must have been a
>> complete assembler reference.
>>
>> If anyone has any more documentation, software, or a photo that would
>> illustrate the article, I'd like to hear from you.  The System 21 seems
>> to be a good candidate for the first microcomputer, so it would be nice
>> to know more.
>> --
>> Pete
>
> I was part of the team that wrote the FORTRAN IV compiler and library
> for the two models of the Viatron,  I believe the FORTRAN IV (as I
> recall) for the Viatron 2140 didn't have COMPLEX and some other stuff,
> what that stuff was I no longer remember.  I was (at that time) employed
> by CUC (Computer Usage Company), the oldest software house at that time.
> (CUC later went bankrupt a few months later, either that, it was on its
> way.   I believe Viatron declared bankruptcy before CUC got paid for the
> FORTRAN IV product.  I was at the factory in Bedford and used both
> models of the computer, using the robotic keyboard (printer --- it was
> hilarious just watching that rig run), an IBM 129 card punch which
> doubled as a card reader and card punch (80 columns),  and a couple of
> tape drives (two tape cassettes) used to store the FORTRAN IV compiler
> and library, and the monitor (supervisor?), and most likely, the
> assembler.  I don't recall SEEING the two models of the Viatron
> computers themselves, they probably didn't have any skins on, so I
> might have missed them, or maybe they were under lock and key (and
> hoods) so we couldn't steal any secrets and such.  Security was pretty
> high, or maybe they were just paranoid.  We were restricted to the
> 8 pm to 6 am shift.  I got the impression that there were very few
> operational Viatron computers and peripherals (all kinds).
> _________________________________________________ Gerard Schildberger
>
>
>

Thanks Gerard, very interesting.  I'm not surprised that the FORTRAN was 
missing some stuff, since it had to run on a 16K(byte) system with no 
disk.  It must have been fun trying to fit it all in.  IBM 1130 FORTRAN 
ran in 16K machine, but (I think) it used the disk for overlays and 
table overflows.

-- 
Pete