[Info-vax] The best VMS features, was: Re: openvms renaming file

[Johnny Billquist]

On 31.05.18 06:40, Tim Sneddon wrote:
> Michael Moroney <moroney at world.std.spaamtrap.com> wrote:
>> Simon Clubley <clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> writes:
>>
>>> On 2018-05-29, Michael Moroney <moroney at world.std.spaamtrap.com> wrote:
>>>> Simon Clubley <clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> writes:
>>>>
>>>>> BTW, has anyone asked you if TECO is going to be available on x86-64 ? :-)
>>>>
>>>> A major fan of TECO works for VSI and he will be sure it's in X86...
>>
>>> That editor has now been around in one form or the other since the
>>> early 1960s - I wonder how much longer it will be around for ? :-)
>>
>> Apparently that's the reason why the TECO code is so ugly. It's been
>> ported from one machine to another, possibly by a conversion program in
>> some cases, and by the time it made it to VAX the code was so ugly the
>> Alpha Macro-32 compiler wouldn't accept it, and nobody would (could?)
>> fix the code so that it would.  (It's VESTed on Alpha and the VESTed
>> Alpha code is AESTed on Itanic)
> 
> It's worse than that.  From what I understand it started on the:
> 
>   o. PDP-10 and then made its way to the

Actually way before then. It started on a PDP-1. But I doubt the PDP-10 
version had any of the PDP-1 or intermediate implementations code used.

>   o. PDP-8 thanks to Stanley Rabinowitz, then the

The PDP-8 version is an independent implementation from the PDP-10. But 
it was inspired by the PDP-10 version.
Interestingly enough, the PDP-10 version is actually a JIT system, which 
none of the subsequent implementations are, and which also makes PDP-10 
TECO code run pretty fast. (Assuming I'm remembering things right.)
There are lots of differences between PDP-10 TECO, and the PDP-8/11/VAX 
versions. In most cases, the PDP-10 version is way more capable.

>   o. PDP-11 thanks to Mark Bramhall and , then the

The TECO-11 V40 sources says:
"; PDP-11 TECO STARTED OUT AS A BRUTE FORCE TRANSLATION OF OS/8
;       TECO BY HANK MAURER AND BOB HARTMAN AT FORD OF COLOGNE,
;       WEST GERMANY. OS/8 TECO CAME FROM A PROGRAM ORIGINALLY
;       WRITTEN BY RUSSELL HAMM, WAY BACK WHEN... IT WAS MODIFIED
;       FOR OS/8 BY THE O.M.S.I. CREW, SPEEDED UP, SHORTENED, AND
;       MAKE PDP-10 COMPATIBLE BY RICHARD LARY OF DEC WITH ASSISTANCE
;       FROM MARIO DENOBLI OF THE P?S. THE BRUTE FORCE TRANSLATION
;       WAS FURTHER MUNGED AND ALTERED BY MARK BRAMHALL OF DEC TO
;       BRING IT INTO MORE STANDARD PDP-11 CODE AND MAKE A HIGH/LOW
;       SEGMENT SPLIT. MEMORY SIZE EXPANSION WAS ADDED. FURTHER PDP-10
;       COMPATIBILITY WAS DONE BY ANTON CHERNOFF. VARIOUS NEW COMMANDS
;       AND FEATURES WERE ADDED AGAIN. FINALLY HERE WE ARE... TECO-11!
"

And the TECO-11 code is butt ugly. Looking at it, you can certainly 
believe that it would have been a brute force translation from PDP-8 
code. On and off I am considering if I would rewrite it so that I can at 
least get it as a split I/D space program...

>   o. VAX with extra help from Andy Goldstein, and as you rightly stated,
>      it was ported to

This one was, for a long time, running in compatibility mode, and Andy 
had to actually port it over when VAXen started showing up without 
PDP-11 compatibility.

The story beyond this point is unknown to me.

   Johnny

-- 
Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                   ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se             ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol