Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!dvlmarv!alanm
From: alanm@dvlmarv.UUCP (Alan Matsuoka)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: the other Unisys machines (was Burroughs stack machines)
Keywords: RISC, real-time
Message-ID: <1154@dvlmarv.UUCP>
Date: 17 Jun 88 20:35:49 GMT
References: <1521@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <1532@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <476@pcrat.UUCP> <2868@louie.udel.EDU> <370@dlscg1.UUCP> <3147@polyslo.UUCP> <10089@ames.arc.nasa.gov> <2336@winchester.mips.COM>
Reply-To: alanm@dvlmarv.UUCP (Alan Matsuoka)
Organization: Develcon Electronics, Toronto
Lines: 41

In article <2336@winchester.mips.COM> mash@winchester.UUCP (John Mashey) writes:
>In article <10089@ames.arc.nasa.gov> eugene@pioneer.UUCP (Eugene N. Miya) writes:
>>I've never worked on MCP, but a friend headed their Large Systems
>>Language group in Pasadena.  The language isn't quite ALGOL, it's SPL.
>
>ALGOL = what applications were written in, along with COBOL.
>DC ALGOL = Data Communications Extended ALGOL = extended version used to
>build message control systems for datacomm.
>ESPOL = what the MCP was written in; I think it stood for
>Executive System procedure Oriented Language.

Back in school, we used to refer to ESPOL as the

Extra Super Powerful Language

All kidding aside, a friend of mine at Unisys told me that MCP was
rewritten in a language called NEWP (or something like that).

There was also a DM ALGOL and a DM COBOL as I can recall (DM for data
manipulation ).

I've used DM COBOL ( way back when ) but I don't remember too much about it
aside from the fact that you had all of the same access to the System
Intrinsics  with Algol and Cobol.

It's pretty weird being able to fork off tasks, independent jobs
and coroutines in Cobol.

DC Algol was/is used to build the MCS on the mainframe side but a language
called NDL ( Network Definition Language - Again Algol60 like ) was
used for programming the DCP's.

And yes, their form of JCL called WFL ( pronounced wuffle - for Work Flow
Language ) was also kind of neat (also Algol-like).

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Suite 500 Willowdale, ON Canada M2J 4Z2
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