+1. This is my philosophy as well. If I can run something besides UNIX on a machine, I will, and if I can program in something besides C, I will often like to take the time out to play (although if I'm actually trying to "do" something, I'll most likely do it in C because I'm most comfortable there) ... Not that I don't like UNIX, it's a fine system and wrangling it is a fine career but there are plenty of machines that will run it; the great variety in it is one of the things I love most about historical computing.
Best, Sean On Fri, Aug 7, 2015 at 4:47 PM, Guy Sotomayor <g...@shiresoft.com> wrote: > I view the language issue along the same lines as the OS (or monitor, or > ???) that exists on > the various classic computers. With some notable exceptions, I tend not > to run Unix on my > classic HW but one of the original OS's that the HW was shipped with. The > same goes for > programming languages. I don't want to write everything in "C". In some > cases C imposes > too heavy a burden (MVS 3.8 J for example) and isn't in line with the > "flavor" of the machine > and/or OS. In the case of my Symbolics machines, even though there is a C > compiler for it, > my question is "why?". It's a LISP machine, you should write in LISP > (after all even the OS is > written in LISP). > > When I'm doing programming, I choose the language that's most > appropriate. Not only based > upon the problem at hand but the environment/machine it's intended to be > used on. For > example, for my MEM11 project, I'm using a uP that is designed to run > Forth, so I'm writing > everything in Forth (including the simulator). It turns out to be really > efficient and low > overhead. I can't imagine what it would take for a C-runtime to provide > the environment > that I currently have with Forth. > > TTFN - Guy > > > On 8/7/15 12:10 PM, Sean Caron wrote: > >> I suppose so ... in the process of building various little >> single-board-computers based on historical microprocessors, I end up using >> their corresponding assembly languages, some of which are probably no >> longer really in commercial use. >> >> Mostly on UNIX I just use C (or Perl, or ...) but on other platforms where >> other languages are available, like on VMS, or on platforms where C (or >> even Pascal) is _not_ available (say, MTS or MVS 3.8J on Hercules) I like >> to play around with some of the older languages, that you might not see >> used so much anymore ... Pascal, LISP, FORTRAN, PL/I, SNOBOL, of course >> good ole BASIC ... whatever's available and I have some reference >> materials >> for (I enjoy collecting good old EE/CS textbooks as well) ... mostly these >> are little "toy" programs though, just to run the compilers through their >> paces and see the OS run a few executables ... I'm not doing any real >> development in FORTRAN or PL/I :O >> >> Best, >> >> Sean >> >> >> On Fri, Aug 7, 2015 at 12:18 PM, Eric Christopherson < >> echristopher...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> Is there a subset of this group for people who like to program in >>> languages or language implementations or libraries that are no longer >>> in common mainstream use? Or other groups for such a thing? >>> >>> -- >>> Eric Christopherson >>> >>> >
