Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!sdcsvax!nosc!humu!uhmanoa!aloha1!islenet!richard
From: richard@islenet.UUCP (Richard Foulk)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: machine specific languages (was: Re: C machine)
Message-ID: <3716@islenet.UUCP>
Date: 28 Dec 87 15:37:12 GMT
References: <7535@alice.UUCP> <673@brandx.rutgers.edu> <1297@sugar.UUCP>
Reply-To: richard@islenet.UUCP (Richard Foulk)
Organization: Islenet Inc.,  Honolulu
Lines: 18

In article <1297@sugar.UUCP> peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes:
> [...]
> I used to think the same thing about PL/M and the 8080/8086 (geeze, this
> language is clearly designed by people who did a lot of coding on the 8080),
> until it was pointed out to me that the same constructs I was looking at
> existed in PL/1. The most you could say was that PL/1 might have been chosen
> as a model because it fit the 8080 register layout so well.

As I understand it Kildall wrote PL/M with similarities to PL/I because
he was very familiar with PL/I.  (He later wrote a PL/I compiler.)

I think the notion that he did alot of 8080 work prior to the PL/M project
may be incorrect.  Though PL/M does seem to have paid particular attention
to the details of 8080 register usage, etc., most of those details can
be gleaned from one reading of an architectural description of the 8080.

-- 
Richard Foulk		...{dual,vortex,ihnp4}!islenet!richard
Honolulu, Hawaii