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From: jbn@wdl1.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.lang
Subject: Re: Re: Assembly VS HOL: Having it both
Message-ID: <439@wdl1.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 23-May-85 21:23:23 EDT
Article-I.D.: wdl1.439
Posted: Thu May 23 21:23:23 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 27-May-85 03:12:47 EDT
Sender: notes@wdl1.UUCP
Organization: Ford Aerospace, Western Development Laboratories
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Nf-ID: #R:mako:-75700:wdl1:8600006:000:937
Nf-From: wdl1!jbn    May 23 13:35:00 1985


     Burroughs Algol was a high-level language, at least as high-level as C
or Pascal.  So is PL/S.  But PL/360 is totally nonportable and makes the
register structure of the target machine, for example,  very visible.  
It's a different kind of language than most programmers are used to.
One of the key properties of a medium-level language is that the programmer
is not insulated from the machine architecture at all.
     Stanford may still have PL/360.  They still have ORVIL, WYLBUR,
Algol-W, and a number of other antiques running on the IBM iron.
In fact, the Stanford CS department's latest new machine is a DECsystem 2060
that DARPA had left over from some project elsewhere and offered to Stanford.
Stanford still has the old Incompatible Time-Sharing System running on SAIL,
after all these years.  The fact that something is still in use at Stanford
reflects only that Stanford got into the business early.

					John Nagle