Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!snorkelwacker!bloom-beacon!eru!luth!sunic!tut!tukki!sakkinen
From: sakkinen@tukki.jyu.fi (Markku Sakkinen)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
Subject: Re: Help -- I'm trapped in a web of old Algol programs
Message-ID: <3723@tukki.jyu.fi>
Date: 13 Mar 90 07:31:24 GMT
References: <5757@tekcrl.LABS.TEK.COM> <53790@bu.edu.bu.edu>
Reply-To: sakkinen@jytko.jyu.fi (Markku Sakkinen)
Organization: University of Jyvaskyla, Finland
Lines: 51

In article <53790@bu.edu.bu.edu> art@cs.bu.edu (Al Thompson) writes:
>In article <5757@tekcrl.LABS.TEK.COM> steves@tekchips.LABS.TEK.COM (Steve Shellans) writes:
>|
>|I have a body of programs written in Algol 60 for an old Data General
>|computer.  I wish to convert them to run on a PC with minimum effort.
>|My questions:
>| ...
>|  2. If not, then I must convert to a modern language.
>
>Oops.  Algol is a modern language, it's just dead now.  Algol was the
> ...
>|  In talking
>|     to some people, they suggested that Pascal was the closest
>|     relative.  Do you agree?  Disagree?  (Someone else suggested
>|     Modula-2)

Coral (or perhaps officially CORAL 66) might be the closest relative
of Algol 60 that is rather generally available. I know about a Swedish
research institute that bought PDP-11's to replace some antique
computers around 10 years ago. One of their problems was that they
had a lot of Algol 60 code (in a peculiar dialect, I think) that had
to be ported. It succeeded rather smoothly using PDP-11 Coral.

Coral was the official real-time language of the British government:
I think at some time it was impossible to sell minicomputers to U.K.
government agencies unless a Coral compiler was available. Therefore,
most minicomputer manufacturers have supported Coral. Unfortunately,
I don't know whether a compiler is available for PC's.

>Wirth designed Pascal after a careful study of the Burroughs Algol
>compiler on the machine at Stanford.  Many of the things incorporated in
>Pascal actually appeared as macros in the Algol compiler.
>
>Your translation could get a little hairy if the Algol program uses some
>of the language's fancier tricks e.g. dynamic arrays, or (shudder) dynamic
>own arrays.  Assuming none of this fancy trickery the translation should
>be doable.

Oh yes, most "modern" languages haven't got dynamic arrays;
they would be very nice for many purposes (e.g. general-purpose
subroutine libraries). Note that even the "conformant" arrays
of ISO standard Pascal (level 1) are not dynamic in the Algol 60 sense.
What was it again that Tony Hoare said about Algol 60 ...

Markku Sakkinen
Department of Computer Science
University of Jyvaskyla (a's with umlauts)
Seminaarinkatu 15
SF-40100 Jyvaskyla (umlauts again)
Finland
          SAKKINEN@FINJYU.bitnet (alternative network address)