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From: mcjones@magic.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.works
Subject: Re: xeroX slime ad warning (really Meta 4)
Message-ID: <467@magic.DEC.COM>
Date: Tue, 29-Apr-86 13:53:47 EDT
Article-I.D.: magic.467
Posted: Tue Apr 29 13:53:47 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 2-May-86 07:55:31 EDT
References: <719@hoptoad.uucp> <1846@calmasd.CALMA.UUCP> <321@pyramid.UUCP> <1669@shark.UUCP>
Reply-To: mcjones@magic.UUCP (Paul McJones)
Organization: DEC Systems Research Center, Palo Alto
Lines: 19
Summary: Meta 4 made by Digital Scientific, not XDS

---------
I'm afraid Bob Lewis is "mixing his metaphors":

     Just to put things in perspective, one of the big plusses of
     the Sigma-7 was its programmable microcode, and the gang at
     UCSD was really looking forward to getting a machine which
     could emulate an IBM 1130!  The name of the emulating OS was
     "Meta-4", one of the best examples of pre-UNIX puns in the
     computing industry.

The Meta 4 was a microprogrammable machine built by Digital
Scientific Corp. around 1970.  Its main purpose was indeed to
emulate the IBM 1130, although it could be reprogrammed for other
purposes.  (In 1972 I microprogrammed a Meta 4 to execute a "P-code"
for a subset of APL at the Center for Research in Management Science
at the University of California at Berkeley.)


Paul McJones  decwrl!mcjones  mcjones@src.dec.com