[Info-vax] OS implementation languages

[Alexander Schreiber]

Simon Clubley <clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> wrote:
> On 2023-08-25, Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> wrote:
>> 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...
>>
>
> In way too many cases, marketing success (at least in the short term,
> and sometimes in the longer term) doesn't appear to be related to
> technical elegance.
>
> After all, we all use Windows...

No, we don't. No Windows machines around _here_ ;-)

> OTOH, Unix with its portable HLL approach, has outlasted VMS...

And was inspired by Multics.

Kind regards,
           Alex.
-- 
"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and
 looks like work."                                      -- Thomas A. Edison