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From: johnl@ima.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.lang.c
Subject: Re: C cross compiler
Message-ID: <484@ima.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 19-Feb-85 23:37:46 EST
Article-I.D.: ima.484
Posted: Tue Feb 19 23:37:46 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 22-Feb-85 21:41:58 EST
Lines: 26
Nf-ID: #R:brl-tgr:-813700:ima:10100009:000:1522
Nf-From: ima!johnl    Feb 19 22:58:00 1985

>> Oh, like, wow.  Are there still 360/20s around?
>[followed by derogatory comments about the 360/20 instruction set]
>I fail to see the purpose in responding to someone's request for 
>information in this manner.  Do you really think that several hundred 
>thousand dollars, or a few million dollars, worth of equipment is going to 
>be thrown away every time someone comes up with something new?  I think the 
>name for this kind of attitude is "snobbery." 

I think some people are a little touchy.  I have nothing against the 360/20 --
it was fun to program.  But the /20 was designed twenty years ago.  It was made
of discrete transistors and core memory.  There is newer stuff in glass cases
in the Computer Museum.  I really am amazed if somewhere there is still a /20
in production use.  For the cost of power and maintenance alone, it'd likely be
cheaper to throw the 20 away and replace it, perhaps with a System/36 if the
software is mostly RPG or a PC XT/370 if it's in assembler.  The /20 was a
minimal CPU onto which you could hang some decent peripherals, like a 1000
LPM train printer.  But it's dumb -- less cpu power than an 8080, and with
typically 4K or 8K of memory, not much room to maneuver.

Writing a C compiler for this fine antique would be a tour de force, but it's
hard to imagine why one would even try.

John Levine, ima!johnl, Levine@YALE.ARPA

PS:  If you want to get rid of your 20, perhaps the Computer Museum would take
it for its collection -- it's a little weak in PDP-8 era IBMery.