Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!mtunx!rutgers!mailrus!nrl-cmf!ames!decwrl!labrea!polya!kaufman
From: kaufman@polya.Stanford.EDU (Marc T. Kaufman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Knowing Machine Code
Message-ID: <3028@polya.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 9 Jun 88 00:51:22 GMT
References: <1911@rayssdb.ray.com> <2586@polyslo.UUCP> <321@piring.cwi.nl> <2729@polyslo.UUCP> <6010@well.UUCP> <10893@apple.Apple.Com> <2823@polyslo.UUCP> <11093@apple.Apple.Com> <13735@comp.vuw.ac.nz>
Reply-To: kaufman@polya.Stanford.EDU (Marc T. Kaufman)
Organization: Stanford University
Lines: 17

In article <13735@comp.vuw.ac.nz> newbery@rata.vuw.ac.nz (Michael Newbery) writes:

>2) Not all architectures require an assembler. There is no assembler on the
>   Burroughs (now Unisys) Large Systems. None. Never was. Ever. Not necessary.
>   All programming was done in Algol (or dialects.)

That's not quite true.  If the Algol compiler is compiled with a special switch
(e.g. for systems programming), you can write direct "assembly" language.
Since the B5xxx/B6xxx machines were stack-based, the code looked a lot like
Polish code.  Also, for the real kernel hackers, there was a thing called
ESPOL, which would normally be considered an assembly language.

I wrote/modified compilers to run on the B5500.  I needed to know assembly
language. (surely you don't think there were intrinsic 'IF', 'CASE', etc.
instructions on that machine).

Marc Kaufman (kaufman@polya.stanford.edu)