Re: IBM METALC curiosity.
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In the '60s, there was BSL (basic systems language). It is the predecessor of PL/S.
Joe
On Tue, Jan 16, 2024 at 3:31?PM Giuseppe Vitillaro < giuseppe@...> wrote:
On Tue, 16 Jan 2024, Laird Heal via??wrote:
>>IBM made them go retrieve every?single tape and destroy it, and promise to
>>never again distribute it, in exchange for not being sued.
>This is something I can't really understand, it
>looks more like ... what the word in english? ... stubborness?
>obstinacy? ... than a real legal issue.
>Maybe IBM may have changed its mind?
I doubt if IBM could have sued RAND successfully. Back then, the arguments
were about look and feel, and trying to patent a programming language would
fail as it would be deemed a mere mathematical formula. Now,
good-cop-bad-cop, IBM could have suggested that an operation busy modifying
MVT might want to keep in good graces for the times it needed to call for
support or such. IBM has good reasons not to have PL/S or a workalike out in
the wild.
This match with what I'm reading on Wiki, it
looks like the Rand Company just didn't find any real
interest in being sued by IBM by such an
economical irrilevant thing.
Reading between the lines it seems that Rand Company
itself didn't dismiss their compiler internally, they
just didn't sell or distribute it anymore after IBM
expressed its concerns.
It looks like someone could start with PL360 and the available documentation
and if it took three programmers for RAND to bring RL/S to production, how
long would it take one programmer?
As for as Metal C as it applies to MVS, a GCC library could invoke the SVCs
seamlessly, if someone wants to do the work and if anyone would use it.
Yes, the asm inline GCC feature can do that,
on any reasonable platform from what I know.
The GCC compiler just emit assembly code
and may add assembler language source code whatever
is needed to C code, C code that at the end
born as a portable "assmbler" language ;-)
Actually, as I wrote, IBM METALC seems modeled,
even for its syntax, on GCC.
But, just for the sake of the history, it looks like
PL/S had been probably in its age (1960-1970)
among the first between languages which support
this feature.
True of false?
Peppe.
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