🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <15...@bfmny0.BFM.COM>, tn...@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff) writes:
> Well then, here's a likely topic for discussion:
> 
> What was the funniest and/or most memorable computer language NAME you
> ever ran into?  No, 'c89' is ineligible, that would be too easy.  :-)
> 
> Extra points if you wrote the compiler yourself.

In my compiler writing class, we developed something called "HUMPTY".
I don't remember what it stood for.  It had ALGOL-60 control structure,
SNOBOL string processing, LISP list processing, and a few other things.
We wrote our compilers in PL360 on IBM 360s using cards.

Almost any HUMPTY program would break the compiler :-)
-- 
Jeremy Epstein
TRW Systems Division
703-876-8776
jje%v...@uunet.uu.net

>From article <15...@bfmny0.BFM.COM>, by tn...@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff):
| What was the funniest and/or most memorable computer language NAME you
| ever ran into?  No, 'c89' is ineligible, that would be too easy.  :-)
| Extra points if you wrote the compiler yourself.

NeilBrown, next door, has written his own shell. Since he wants to support
various command line editting styles (emacs for them, vi for me, etc), this
is done via a small language he concocted. Works quite well.

It's called NOEL (Neil's Own Editor Language).
	- Cameron Simpson
	  cam...@spectrum.cs.unsw.oz.au

>What was the funniest [...] computer language NAME you

JOVIAL, of course.
--

I started this sub-thread without mentioning my own contribution.  I
once wrote a simple didactic language, a little bit like Logo but long
before the days when people played around with hi-res graphic screens or
any of that silliness.  This was back when most languages ended in -AL
or -OL.  I invented

	DISMAL

which I shoehorned into something like Dynamically Interpreted Simple
Model (of an) Algorthmic Language... or something... I literally forget,
it's been many years.  I just wanted to teach these people DISMAL
programming!  Grade their DISMAL assignments!  Hand out mimeographed
sheets containing DISMAL examples!  It was great fun.  This was in the
days when student programming truly was a "dismal" exercise, with long
lines of sallow, pinch-faced dweebs submitting *decks* to the *operator
window* and then sitting around in awful looking rooms waiting for their
*printouts* to appear in the out-bin minutes or hours later... so they
could pore through the cheesy green fanfold newsprint looking for stupid
syntax errors, then fumble around with 029 keypunches for a while and
restart the whole numbing cycle with a modified deck... Meanwhile a
nervy cadre of the more forward looking souls staked out a tiny number
of ASCII dumb terminals in a cramped room nearby.  Compared to that, all
you dewy eyed youngsters with your $3,000 personal workstations and your
California tans and your soccer leagues are pampered bunnies. :-)
-- 
    For the curious:            +---+     Tom Neff
Here's what RS-232 pins do!   ==|:::|==   tn...@bfmny0.BFM.COM
       -- Inmac                 +---+     uunet!bfmny0!tneff

In article <15...@bfmny0.BFM.COM>, tn...@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff) writes:
[A bit of ranting deleted]
>Compared to that, all
>you dewy eyed youngsters with your $3,000 personal workstations and your
>California tans and your soccer leagues are pampered bunnies. :-)
 
  Hey, I've been using a Tandy Color Computer (in one form or another) since
1980! I've just now upgraded... to a Laser 128.
  Workstations!? We don't need no stinkin' WORKSTATIONS!
 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
     CARL%NUCE...@PINE.CIRCA.UFL.EDU  -  "Here, have a scooby snack."
"That reminds me of the year I had a room next to Deidra's. Don't worry, all  
 I heard was your electric shaver. At least I *hope* it was her electric 
 shaver."                  --Doctor, Doctor
*DISCLAIMER* - Contents is not connected with UF or NucEng department.

In article <1990Oct01.142833.11862@virtech.uucp>, jje@virtech.uucp (Jeremy J. Epstein) writes:
> In article <15...@bfmny0.BFM.COM>, tn...@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff) writes:
>> Well then, here's a likely topic for discussion:
>> 
>> What was the funniest and/or most memorable computer language NAME you
>> ever ran into?  No, 'c89' is ineligible, that would be too easy.  :-)
>> 
>> Extra points if you wrote the compiler yourself.
> 
> In my compiler writing class, we developed something called "HUMPTY".
> I don't remember what it stood for.  It had ALGOL-60 control structure,
> SNOBOL string processing, LISP list processing, and a few other things.
> We wrote our compilers in PL360 on IBM 360s using cards....

I can't cite a reference, but I once came across a derivative of SNOBOL
called (no kidding) SPITBOL...

(Anyone have a reference on this?)

[  M.P.Gerlek, Wanna-Be At Large
[  Disclaimer: Yes, Mom, I'll play nice.
[  {uunet,bbn,ulowell}!samsung!hubdub!mpg
[  "My other machine's a multi-threaded YMP."

ca...@robot.nuceng.ufl.edu (Drifter...) writes:

>In article <15...@bfmny0.BFM.COM>, tn...@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff) writes:
>[A bit of ranting deleted]
>>Compared to that, all
>>you dewy eyed youngsters with your $3,000 personal workstations and your
>>California tans and your soccer leagues are pampered bunnies. :-)
> 
>  Hey, I've been using a Tandy Color Computer (in one form or another) since
>1980! I've just now upgraded... to a Laser 128.
>  Workstations!? We don't need no stinkin' WORKSTATIONS!
> 

And of course the author referred (somewhat derogatorily) to the 029
punch machine. 

Hell lad! We use to queue up for a chance on the 026!

:-)


--

------------         -----------------     ---------------------
Mark Delany          ma...@Aus.Sun.COM     ...!sun!sunchat!markd
------------         -----------------     ---------------------

ger...@merrimack.edu writes:

>I can't cite a reference, but I once came across a derivative of SNOBOL
>called (no kidding) SPITBOL...

>(Anyone have a reference on this?)

Well, there's a SPITBOL compiler on the RPI mainframe.  There's also
another variant (I assume it's related, anyway) called SNOSTORM.
-- 
--
Trip Martin
ni...@pawl.rpi.edu
-- 
--
Trip Martin
ni...@pawl.rpi.edu

ger...@merrimack.edu writes:

>I can't cite a reference, but I once came across a derivative of SNOBOL
>called (no kidding) SPITBOL...

Which stands for SPeedy ImplemenTation of snoBOL.

Victor.

In article <15...@bfmny0.BFM.COM>, tn...@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff) writes:
> Well then, here's a likely topic for discussion:
> 
> What was the funniest and/or most memorable computer language NAME you
> ever ran into?  No, 'c89' is ineligible, that would be too easy.  :-)

My name is Richard Krehbiel.  That's pronounced like "kray-ble".

I've always wanted to invent my own computer language, and I know what
I'd call it: Kreh-bol.

I've also wanted to build my own computer. I'd call the first one the
Kreh-1.

-- 
First comes the logo: C H E C K P O I N T  T E C H N O L O G I E S      / /  
                                                                    \\ / /    
Then, the disclaimer:  All expressed opinions are, indeed, opinions. \  / o
Now for the witty part:    I'm pink, therefore, I'm spam!             \/

Folklorist ger...@merrimack.edu writes:
>jje@virtech.uucp (Jeremy J. Epstein) writes:
>I can't cite a reference, but I once came across a derivative of SNOBOL
>called (no kidding) SPITBOL...
>(Anyone have a reference on this?)
>[  M.P.Gerlek, Wanna-Be At Large

 I don't have a reference on SPITBOL, but I do recall that it was a compiled
version of SNOBOL.  
 Does anyone know if SNOBOL is an acronym for anything? 

Tim McGuire
mcg...@cs.tamu.edu

In article <FDQ...@rpi.edu>, ni...@pawl.rpi.edu (Trip Martin) writes:
|> Well, there's a SPITBOL compiler on the RPI mainframe.  There's also
|> another variant (I assume it's related, anyway) called SNOSTORM.

Eighth and Ninth Edition Unix have a further variation on this theme:

snocone - snobol with syntactic sugar

Is someone who uses these a 'snoperson'?

YWAKEUP - Yossie's WAKEUP.
YDATE   - Yossie's DATE function.
YSYS    - Yossie's SYStem - a small opsys that never really caught on :-))
etc..

Call me modest! :-)   - Yossie

P.s. these are mostly programs that run under VM systems.  In use at various
places around the world.

In article <20136.2...@merrimack.edu>, ger...@merrimack.edu writes:
> In article <1990Oct01.142833.11862@virtech.uucp>, jje@virtech.uucp (Jeremy J. Epstein) writes:
> > In article <15...@bfmny0.BFM.COM>, tn...@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff) writes:
> >> Well then, here's a likely topic for discussion:
.  .  .
> > In my compiler writing class, we developed something called "HUMPTY".
> > I don't remember what it stood for.  It had ALGOL-60 control structure,
> > SNOBOL string processing, LISP list processing, and a few other things.
> > We wrote our compilers in PL360 on IBM 360s using cards....
> 
> I can't cite a reference, but I once came across a derivative of SNOBOL
> called (no kidding) SPITBOL...
> 
> (Anyone have a reference on this?)

Yu[, there was a SPITBOL and, yes, it was a follow-on to
SNOBOL (the explanation I heard was that "SPITBOL was a
much faster SNOBOL" :-)

It's a pattern-matching and string manipulation language,
with each line consisting of (I think) three fields. The
first field was a pattern, that if matched, led you to
execute the code in the middle field (which principly
appended, deleted, added and otherwise manipulated
strings) The third field was the target and specified
which line to go to next.

It was actually quite a neat language. I learned it in my
Comparative Language class, where we did three or four
different languages, each using a different programming
paradigm (the others included Lisp and (eek!) PL-1).

I ran it on the university's mainframe (it was actually an
Amdahl at the time, but last time I checked it was still
listed in the list of available languages, even though
they've since gone back to IBM's.) I would think versions
exist for other languages, but can't swear to it.


			- peterd

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-------+ 	Peter Deutsch		McGill University
| u # u |	pet...@cs.mcgill.ca	School of Computer Science
|/\/\/\/|	
|  a a  |	
 \  a  /	"Love my work, hate my job..."
  \___/         
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

tn...@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff) writes:

>Well then, here's a likely topic for discussion:
>What was the funniest and/or most memorable computer language NAME you
>ever ran into?  No, 'c89' is ineligible, that would be too easy.  :-)

Well... there is a legend around here about

  JAIL - just another instructive language
 
For which there was no compiler.  
 Fitting, as you couldn't do anything useful in JAIL anyway.

To get back to the original subject...

The perl manual offers two possibilities for the meaning of the name:

	Practical Exctraction and Report Language

		or

	Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister

Mr. Wall identifies the second to be the *true* meaning of the name.

-- 
Geoff Allen         \  Computers are useless.  
uunet!pmafire!geoff  \  They can only give you answers.
bigtex!pmafire!geoff  \		-- Pablo Picasso

pet...@opus.cs.mcgill.ca (Peter Deutsch) writes:

>In article <20136.2...@merrimack.edu>, ger...@merrimack.edu writes:
>> In article <1990Oct01.142833.11862@virtech.uucp>, jje@virtech.uucp (Jeremy J. Epstein) writes:
>> > In article <15...@bfmny0.BFM.COM>, tn...@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff) writes:
>> >> Well then, here's a likely topic for discussion:
>.  .  .
>> > In my compiler writing class, we developed something called "HUMPTY".
>> > I don't remember what it stood for.  It had ALGOL-60 control structure,
>> > SNOBOL string processing, LISP list processing, and a few other things.
>> > We wrote our compilers in PL360 on IBM 360s using cards....
>> 
>> I can't cite a reference, but I once came across a derivative of SNOBOL
>> called (no kidding) SPITBOL...
>> 
>> (Anyone have a reference on this?)

>Yu[, there was a SPITBOL and, yes, it was a follow-on to
>SNOBOL (the explanation I heard was that "SPITBOL was a
>much faster SNOBOL" :-)

And it *IS* running every day on our IBM 3090 under MVS and on our SIEMENS
7582 under BS2000, too. I like the compile and go feature and the easy way to
write powerful programs. A powerful copy-program with reblocking, restructuring,
... done by the run time system looks like:
     INPUT(IN,'INDD')
     OUTPUT(OUT,'OUTDD')
LOOP OUT = IN             :S(LOOP)F(END)
END

As far as I have heard a SPITBOL 386 should be available in these days 
by Catspaw, Inc./ P.O. Box 1123/ Salida, Colorado 81201/ U.S.A.
                  phone: 719-539-3884
They offer a SNOBOL4 (and a Vanilla SNOBOL4), too.
-- 
Werner Icking          ick...@gmdzi.gmd.de          (+49 2241) 14-2443
Gesellschaft fuer Mathematik und Datenverarbeitung mbH (GMD)
Schloss Birlinghoven, P.O.Box 1240, D-5205 Sankt Augustin 1, FRGermany

ni...@pawl.rpi.edu (Trip Martin) writes:

>ger...@merrimack.edu writes:

>>I can't cite a reference, but I once came across a derivative of SNOBOL
>>called (no kidding) SPITBOL...

>>(Anyone have a reference on this?)

>Well, there's a SPITBOL compiler on the RPI mainframe.  There's also
>another variant (I assume it's related, anyway) called SNOSTORM.

>From my old days at MTS (1978), I recall both SPITBOL and SNOSTORM.
Spitbol was a SNOBOL compiler (as opposed to interpreter).  SNOSTORM was
a structured SNOBOL (standard looping constructs, pseudo-functions,
all that good stuff), sort of like RATFOR for SNOBOL.  SNOSTORM was
written in SNOBOL (of course!) and was available for asking from 
University of Michigan.  I belive it was written there by Fred Swartz.
Fred, you still around?

mcg...@cs.tamu.edu (Tim McGuire) writes:

> Does anyone know if SNOBOL is an acronym for anything? 

"The SNOBOL4 Programmin Language" by Griswold, Poage and Polansky
gives some history of the language but no explaination of the name.

In article <15...@bfmny0.BFM.COM> tn...@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff) writes:
>Well then, here's a likely topic for discussion:
>
>What was the funniest and/or most memorable computer language NAME you
>ever ran into?  No, 'c89' is ineligible, that would be too easy.  :-)

Of course, there is also MUMPS. Don't know what this stands for, but the
language indeed looks sick.

Matthias

-----
Matthias Neeracher                                   mnee...@iiic.ethz.ch
   "These days, though, you have to be pretty technical before you can 
    even aspire to crudeness." -- William Gibson, _Johnny Mnemonic_

In article <10...@neptune.inf.ethz.ch> mnee...@iiic.ethz.ch (Matthias
Ulrich Neeracher) writes:

| In article <15...@bfmny0.BFM.COM> tn...@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff) writes:
| >Well then, here's a likely topic for discussion:
| >
| >What was the funniest and/or most memorable computer language NAME you
| >ever ran into?  No, 'c89' is ineligible, that would be too easy.  :-)
| 
| Of course, there is also MUMPS. Don't know what this stands for, but the
| language indeed looks sick.

Especially considering it was originally developed at Mass. General
Hospital, I guess the analogy is appropriate.  I also forget what
MUMPS stands for.
--
Michael Meissner	email: meis...@osf.org		phone: 617-621-8861
Open Software Foundation, 11 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA, 02142

Do apple growers tell their kids money doesn't grow on bushes?

mnee...@iiic.ethz.ch (Matthias Ulrich Neeracher) writes:

}In article <15...@bfmny0.BFM.COM> tn...@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff) writes:
}>Well then, here's a likely topic for discussion:
}>
}>What was the funniest and/or most memorable computer language NAME you
}>ever ran into?  No, 'c89' is ineligible, that would be too easy.  :-)

}Of course, there is also MUMPS. Don't know what this stands for, but the
}language indeed looks sick.

The MGH Utility MultiProgramm System.  MUMPS was sort of a Basic-like
language, and the actual first MUMPS system ran on a PDP-7 standalone
[that is, the only thing the OS did was timeshare MUMPS among the
various incoming TTY lines].

The was a spinoff of the "Hospital Computer Project" funded by the NIH as a
joint MGH [Massachusetts General Hospital] / BBN affair.  The actual project
started on a PDP-1b [serial #2] and later [1965] moved to a timeshared
PDP-1d.  The idea was to experiment with the use of computers to expedite /
improve patient care in hospitals [unfortunately, about a decade before
the technology would really be practical to the task, and so it mostly died.
It included things like programs to help fill out blue cross forms, programs
to keep track of who is in which bed in the hospital [a serious problem then
[maybe now, too?] is that if a patient moved to a different bed, it was a
REAL trouble getting all of his lab tests, medications, etc, to move along
with her], automating collecting lab reports and distributing them back to
the requesting doctors, etc].  

One family of programs developed was a line of interpreted algebraic
languages based on Cliff Shaw's "JOSS" language.  It was clear by the
end of the contract that running this stuff on a humongeous [at the
time] PDP-1 was not the wave of the future.  The 'successor' to the
PDP-1, the PDP-7 and PDP-9 were really quite different and code could
not be ported to them in any meaningful way, and so anything that was
to move forward would have to be rewritten.  Neil Pappalardo, then at
MGH, got a PDP-7 and implemented a dialect [and, of course,
enhancement/expansion] of one of the last of those algebraic languages,
called it MUMPS, and replaced our PDP-1 general timesharing system with
a MUMPS-only timesharing system.  This is around 1967.

Aren't you sorry you asked??  :-)

  /Bernie\

[1'6ation: Inrtl  Se+$Ieines: 19

ni...@pawl.rpi.edu (Trip Martin)@optes:

>ger...@merrimack.edu writes:

>>I can't cite a reference, but I once came across a derivative of SNOBOL
pi.called (no kidding) SPITBn)@...

>>(Anyone have  Se+Re: We on this?)

>Well, there's a SPITBn)@com!ciler on the RPI mainframe.  There's also
>another variant (I assume it's related, anyway) 
>gMarSTORM.

>From my old days at MTS (1978), I recall both tivewritesL and s a STITBnsage-
Spitites: was a SNOBSNOcompOLr (as opposed to interpreter).  SNOSPIRM was
a structure EngrSTOSNO(standard looping constructs, pseudo-functions,
all that good stuff
>asort of like RATFITBn for MarORL.  S78)ela I rwas
written in  EngrSand sof course!) and was available for asking from 
University of Michigan.  I belive it was written there by Fre Engrwartz.
F

In <10...@neptune.inf.ethz.ch> mnee...@iiic.ethz.ch (Matthias Ulrich Neeracher) writes:


>Of course, there is also MUMPS. Don't know what this stands for, but the
>language indeed looks sick.

If my memory serves me, MUMPS stands for MassachUsetts general hospital
Multiple Processing System.  It was primarily designed for database work in the 
medical field.  This was before RDBMs, each field to be sorted on had
to have a separate index at the beginning of the database. 

The language itself had 18 keywords, each of which was abbreviated to 1 
letter.  Code segments had to be <2k in length.  

>Matthias

John.


-- 
John Wm. Hayes 						ha...@ultra.com  
UltraNetwork Technologies				(408)922-0100 x202

>>From article <15...@bfmny0.BFM.COM>, by tn...@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff):
>| What was the funniest and/or most memorable computer language NAME you
>| ever ran into?  No, 'c89' is ineligible, that would be too easy.  :-)
>| Extra points if you wrote the compiler yourself.

Melvin Conway, of coroutine fame and inventor of "Conway's Law," wrote
a Burroughs 220 assembler called SAVE. It didn't stand for anything;
it's just that you lost fewer card decks, listings, and manuals
because they all had "SAVE" written on top of them.  The only
functional language *name* I ever encountered.

In 1980, I asked Dr. Poage, an author of SNOBOL and then Director of the
Princeton University Computer Center, of the derivation of SNOBOL's name, and
whether the legend about it was true.  He admitted it was.  Herewith, "How
SNOBOL Got Its Name."

The authors labored mightily and at last their work was done.  The language
they had designed was, um, odd.  It was fiercely odd.  And they looked at each
other, wondering how their new creation would be received.  Finally, one of
them said, "What shall we call it?"  Another said, "It doesn't have a snow-
ball's chance in hell."  The third said, "Then we shall call it SNOBOL, to
commemorate this fact."  And so they did.

                                               David Schachter
voice phone: +1 415 328 7425
internet:    da...@llustig.palo-alto.ca.us
uucp:        ...!{decwrl,mips,sgi}!llustig!david

and then there is MUMPS !! (thats the name of an illness)
it was written by a physician for his needs in a hospital,
i have a compiler for it under Apple CP/M 2.2 and i even
have the original language definition/tutorial book from the
author.

(btw: a friend did a hardware hack on my 1 MHz Z80 card -
a lot of wires and a few new chips enabled it to run at 7 MHz!
that's quite a lot for ol' zilog!)
-- 
Heiko Blume c/o Diakite   bl...@scuzzy.in-berlin.de   FAX   (+49 30) 882 50 65
Kottbusser Damm 28        bl...@scuzzy.mbx.sub.org    VOICE (+49 30) 691 88 93
D-1000 Berlin 61          bl...@netmbx.de             TELEX 184174 intro d
scuzzy Any ACU,f 38400 6919520 ogin:--ogin: nuucp ssword: nuucp [HST,V.42bis]

Then there is the most glowing language - COMIT of course.  Though
it later got cooled off by SNOBOL.


--
Bill Parke 			parke%sta...@decwrl.dec.com
VMS Development			decwrl!star.enet.dec.com!parke
Digital Equipment Corp		pa...@star.enet.dec.com
110 Spit Brook Road ZK01-1/F22, Nashua NH 03063

The views expressed are my own.

In article (murfle) pa...@star.enet.dec.com (Bill Parke) wrote:
>Then there is the most glowing language - COMIT of course.  Though
>it later got cooled off by SNOBOL.

Ah, but aren't most COMITs really big dirty SNOBOLs inside?  Oh wait, I should
put that in sci.astronomy, shouldn't I.  Never mind.

(Joke, Mongo, joke.)

By the way, I have no idea what COMIT is like, just following through on
the pun.

Brad
-- 
Brad Spear				Locus Computing Corporation
sp...@locus.com				Inglewood, CA, USA
Disclaimer: I speak for no one but myself.
This line intentionally left blank.

There was a turtle graphics come ``robot control'' language in
one of the early Dr. Dobbs called WSFN -- "Which Stands For Nothing".
Can't recall the author's full name (it was Chinese) but he was
also responsible for one of the (many) Tiny BASIC's that they published.

-- 
Andrew Newman, Software Engineer.            | Net:   an...@research.canon.oz.au
Canon Information Systems Research Australia | Phone: +1 61 2 805 2914
P.O. Box 313 North Ryde, NSW, Australia 2113 | Fax:   +1 61 2 805 2929

It's probably been mentioned, but do you remember the MAD
(Michigan Algorithm Decoder) language on the 709/7090 series?
The manual was a Carrollian delight, but there was method in it.

Here at the Electronic Visualization laboratory, we have a long history
of funny names for programs, etc.

It started in the 70's (the party years, as will be obvious), with a computer
called the Datamax UV-1, based on Bally hardware. This machine ran a language
called Zgrass, which came from the Data General version, called GRASS.
"GRAphics Symbiosis System"... Yeah, right (cross post to alt.drugs.computers)
One EVLer, named TJ O'Donnel branched out into a medical version, which
he called GRAMPS, with the successor to that, of course, being GRANNY.
We nowhave a version of Zgrass which runs on pc's, macs, workstations, etc,
which is intended for artists, called RT-1 (Supposedly for Real Time One, but
it sounds like "Arty-one") Other things include a program called the
"Array Tracer" (sort of like Wavefront's data visualizer, but we started on
it first, and it is a joke on "Ray Tracer" for those not into graphics, 
a project for a computerized teleclassroom called, "Max Classroom", and
a few more funky jokes
Stephan Meyers c/o san...@uicbert.eecs.uic.edu

In article <22...@sparko.gwu.edu> dut...@seas.gwu.edu () writes:
>It's probably been mentioned, but do you remember the MAD
>(Michigan Algorithm Decoder) language on the 709/7090 series?
>The manual was a Carrollian delight, but there was method in it.

MAD still exists as GOM (Good Old Mad).  It is still being used for
usefull stuff. My copy of the manual is dated 30 June 1989, and is
quite strange, but I've not read it cover to cover. (I'm just a simple
guy who has to take care of a program or two written in GOM.)

--- Richard

In article <22...@sparko.gwu.edu>, dut...@seas.gwu.edu (Sylvia Dutcher) writes:
|> From: dut...@seas.gwu.edu (Sylvia Dutcher)
|> Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
|> Subject: Re: Wild computer language names
|> Reply-To: dut...@seas.gwu.edu ()
|> 
|> It's probably been mentioned, but do you remember the MAD
|> (Michigan Algorithm Decoder) language on the 709/7090 series?
|> The manual was a Carrollian delight, but there was method in it.
|> 

	You might, then, remember that MAD ran under MESS.
	Not a language, but the operating system
	(Michigan Executive Supervisory System I believe from the foggy
	  ruins of my mind).

--
Bill Parke 			parke%sta...@decwrl.dec.com
VMS Development			decwrl!star.enet.dec.com!parke
Digital Equipment Corp		pa...@star.enet.dec.com
110 Spit Brook Road ZK01-1/F22, Nashua NH 03063

The views expressed are my own.

In article <20136.2...@merrimack.edu> ger...@merrimack.edu writes:
> I can't cite a reference, but I once came across a derivative of SNOBOL
> called (no kidding) SPITBOL...

I never saw this one come out, though I waited and waited -- so I created
it.  When I wrote a ROM debug monitor for a Zilog Z8 (single-chip micro)
based project (circa 1979), I christened it:

	SCRUBOL - Simple, Compact, RUntime, Byte-Oriented Language

(That's pronounced "screw-ball" in case there's some doubt :-)

It became quite famous among the crowd in the hardware lab at AES Data Ltd/Ltee.
All 7 of us.

--
bmw@isgtec.uucp  [ ..uunet!utai!lsuc!isgtec!bmw ]  Bruce Walker

In article <1990Oct07.2...@scuzzy.in-berlin.de>, s...@scuzzy.in-berlin.de (Heiko Blume) writes:
> (btw: a friend did a hardware hack on my 1 MHz Z80 card -
> a lot of wires and a few new chips enabled it to run at 7 MHz!
> that's quite a lot for ol' zilog!)

Naw. That's nothing. Zilog's got em that go to 20 MHz now.
-- 
===============================================================================
Roger Ivie

35 S 300 W
Logan, Ut.  84321
(801) 752-8633
===============================================================================

In article <59...@bbn.BBN.COM> cos...@bbn.com (Bernie Cosell) writes:
>mnee...@iiic.ethz.ch (Matthias Ulrich Neeracher) writes:
>}In article <15...@bfmny0.BFM.COM> tn...@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff) writes:

[ discussion about MUMPS ]

MUMPS still is alive and well; it is available for PCs as an OS+language,
and for use under UNIX and VMS from several vendors.  Imagine a PS/2 or 
386PC with 20 users...all running MUMPS.

The ability to use strings or numbers as subscripts (as in awk, and allowing
multidimensional use) works well for quickly developing data-manipulation 
routines.  (My summer job involved programming in MUMPS.)

Another wild name is GNU's "bison," derived, of course, from "yacc".

Dan Ross				dr...@cs.wisc.edu