[Info-vax] OT: PDP-11 history in arstechnica

[Bob Eager]

On Thu, 17 Mar 2022 00:16:35 +0000, chris wrote:

> On 03/16/22 09:28, Bob Eager wrote:
>> On Wed, 16 Mar 2022 00:25:47 +0000, chris wrote:
>>
>>> Just saying, read left to right, move something from a source to a
>>> destination, so the dec pdp11 macro syntax is more natural.
>>
>> But possibly counter intuitive to a high level programmer, who is used
>> to assignments going right to left!
> 
> Programmed in C for years as well, but perhaps different mental
> processes for asm vs high level language programming ?. Assembler is
> primarily moving something to work on,. whereas hll is more algebraic by
> design and follows such rules.

I did some programming in POP_2 once:

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POP-2

Assignments are left to right! But one of the few examples in languages 
(have used (incl. FORTRAN, Algol, BASIC, Pascal, C, C++, BCPL, etc.). 
Assemblers are very inconsistent; I have used DEC syntax (PDP-11, VAX), 
AT&T syntax (PDP-11, VAX), and also DEC syntax (PDP-10) which, as already 
noted, is all about having the accumulator on the left regardless of the 
direction of travel.

And then there's LISP...

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