[SPG_Active_Members] ALGOL

[Paul McJones]

My message on ALGOL resulted in many responses, with numerous 
suggestions and offers of a variety of artifacts:

   1. Gordon Bell noted that DEC contracted with Nico Habermann at CMU
      for an excellent ALGOL compiler for the PDP-10. (I found the
      manuals at bitsavers.org and the source code at
      pdp-10.trailing-edge.com.)
   2. Dennis Austin loaned me his copy of Bob Bemer's "A Socio-Political
      History of Algol 60" and the Burroughs B 5000 ALGOL 60 Syntactical
      Chart.
   3. Grant Saviers:
          * offered to donate a SMALGOL manual for the UNIVAC I, which
            includes the source listing
          * recommended the ALGOL 60 compiler for the UNIVAC 1107/1108
            written at Case Institute of Technology "for its very
            complete implementation and compile and run time diagnostic
            sophistication"; he provided additional background on the
            extensive 1107/1108 systems software developed at Case.
   4. Dennis Allison:
          * offered to donate a B 5000 ALGOL compiler listing,
          * suggested Mary, an Algol68 derivative for embedded systems
            designed by Ivan Godard (then known as Mark Rain),
          * and introduced me to Ivan.
   5. Ivan Godard:
          * explained about the history of Mary,
          * offered to donate listings of the second version of the
            language (done at Penobscot Research Center in Maine for
            Data General and Harris machines; an operating system
            written in the first version of Mary by Ivan at one time ran
            the telephone system for China),
          * offered to donate all issues of the IFP WG 2.4-sponsored
            Machine Oriented Languages bulletin,
          * and gave me a lead for NU ALGOL, and recommended contacting
            the secretary for IFIP WG2.1 -- to ask about ALGOL meeting
            minutes.
   6. Olin Sibert recalled difficulties trying to use a paper-tape based
      ALGOL on a Data General machine in 1973; he was not successful.
      (Incidentally, he would be interested in having
      softwarepreservation.org host the large volume of digitized
      Multics materials that he has accumulated.)
   7. Van Snyder:
          * suggested more contacts for NU ALGOL, when it was being
            worked on at the University of Wisconsin,
          * and reminded me of a source of JOVIAL (and NELIAC and SHARE
            ALGOL) documents: a collection donated to CHM by Mark
            Halpern, which I had cataloged back when I was working on
            FORTRAN.
   8. Dave Redell recalled working on BC ALGOL for the IBM 7094 at Berkeley.
   9. Al Kossow scanned a 1969 listing of Algol W provided by Dennis
      Allison.
  10. I discovered the Halpern collection mentioned above also included
      van der Mey's "Process for an ALGOL Translator" -- the ALGOL 60
      source code for the Stantec Zebra Algol translator and
      interpreter. Halpern's copy was badly insect-damaged and was not
      accepted by CHM, but Al Kossow painstakingly scanned as much as he
      could.

I thank all of you, and will be happy to help expedite the donations 
mentioned above to CHM.


Paul


On 5/11/2010 4:28 PM, Paul McJones wrote:
> I have recently been working on an ALGOL page for the Software 
> Preservation Group web site:
>
> http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/ALGOL/
>
> It covers the evolution of the language including International 
> Algebraic Language (Algol 58), Algol 60, and Algol 68. It also covers 
> many implementations (especially of Algol 60), dialects, and 
> offshoots.  Due to the efforts of a number of people around the world, 
> source code exists for some historic implementations, including:
>
>     * Burroughs 205 (Knuth)
>     * Burroughs 220 (Erdwinn et al.)
>     * Electrologica X1 (Dijkstra and Zonneveld)
>     * Electrologica X18 (Kruseman Aretz)
>     * Elliot 803 (Hoare et al.)
>     * G.E.C. process control computer (Higman)
>     * GIER (Regnecentalen) (Naur et al.)
>     * Whetstone (English Electric) (Randell and Russell)
>     * ZEBRA (Netherlands PTT/Standard Telephones and Cables) (van der
>       Mey) (binary only)
>
> There is also source code for Algol W (Wirth's proposed successor to 
> Algol 60) and for several Algol 68 implementations (although I'm still 
> working on Algol 68).
>
> A scanned copy of Randell and Russell's /Algol 60 Implementation/ is 
> available (Brian obtained permission from the current copyright 
> holder, and Al Kossow provided a scanned copy).
>
> As always, I welcome comments and suggestions.
>
>
> Paul

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