[Info-vax] OS implementation languages

[Rich Alderson]

Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> writes:

> On 2023-08-25 14:18, Simon Clubley wrote:
>> On 2023-08-24, Dennis Boone <drb at ihatespam.msu.edu> wrote:

>>>> That's seriously interesting thanks. So, contrary to what some are
>>>> saying, the idea of writing an OS in such a way was well established
>>>> by the mid-1970s.

>>> The idea was fairly widespread quite a bit earlier, actually.  Burroughs
>>> did ESPOL (an Algol derivative systems language) in starting in 1966.

>> Just done some reading about this and the follow-on language NEWP.

>> It has now become _very_ clear to me that the use of ALGOL-based languages
>> in OS development was very seriously widespread by the time DEC came to
>> design VMS. Pity DEC didn't join them.

> Including Multics. Not an outstanding success exactly...
> Most companies that went that way early was way less successful than 
> DEC, so it is kindof strange to claim that DEC did it wrong and they did 
> it right...

Many of the companies which did this were competing in the mainframe universe
(the Seven Dwarfs, later consolidated into the BUNCH) against the number 1
company in that universe.

The companies in the minicomputer universe who did this were also competing
against the number 1 company in THAT universe.

Hard to shift the 400kg gorilla.

-- 
Rich Alderson					  news at alderson.users.panix.com
      Audendum est, et veritas investiganda; quam etiamsi non assequamur,
	  omnino tamen proprius, quam nunc sumus, ad eam perveniemus.
									--Galen