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Re: Archaic hardware (was Fortran calls)

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From: "glen herrmannsfeldt" <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu>
Sent: Sunday, 6 May 2012 3:13 PM

> I remembered the PDP-8 using the "store the return address in the
> first word" method, but, yes, there was an earlier PDP-10 compiler.
> The one I used was, I believe, called Fortran-10 and the older one
> Fortran-40.

The CDC machines 7600, Cyber 70 series, etc used that method to store
the return address.

Surprising that those machines should take a step backwards,
in view of around a decade of Algol (with recursion).

It meant that each subroutine/function needed to implement its own
stack should it be called recursively.

Alan Turing designed the push-down pop-up stack
for subroutines back in 1945, for his computer (later
christened Automatic Computing Engine).
That feature did not see hardware at that time.
However, the Pilot ACE (1951) included a push-down stack
(or, if you like) a queue.  That push-down stack was
continued into the DEUCE line (1955).

The stack as a means of calling and returning from subroutines/
functions was implemented in the KDF9 (1961, delivered 1963).

The S/360 and subsequent issue stored the return address in a register.
That made it somewhat easier to have a universal stack manipulated
by software.

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Decades of compiler technology and what do we get? Robert AH Prins <robert@prino.org> - 2012-04-22 18:57 +0000
  Re: Decades of compiler technology and what do we get? Robert AH Prins <robert@prino.org> - 2012-04-22 22:14 +0000
  Re: PL/I nostalgia, was Decades of compiler technology and what do we get? glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> - 2012-04-23 00:03 +0000
    Re: PL/I nostalgia "robin" <robin51@dodo.com.au> - 2012-04-25 09:07 +1000
      Re: PL/I nostalgia glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> - 2012-04-24 23:52 +0000
        Re: PL/I nostalgia "robin" <robin51@dodo.com.au> - 2012-04-28 21:30 +1000
          Re: PL/I nostalgia glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> - 2012-04-28 16:11 +0000
            Re: PL/I nostalgia Robert A Duff <bobduff@shell01.TheWorld.com> - 2012-04-29 10:16 -0400
            Re: PL/I code "robin" <robin51@dodo.com.au> - 2012-05-05 00:45 +1000
              Re: PL/I code glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> - 2012-05-05 05:20 +0000
                Re: Fortran calls, was PL/I code glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> - 2012-05-06 05:13 +0000
                Re: Archaic hardware (was Fortran calls) "robin" <robin51@dodo.com.au> - 2012-05-09 10:46 +1000
          Re: PL/I nostalgia "robin" <robin51@dodo.com.au> - 2012-09-19 11:04 +1000
            Re: PL/I nostalgia glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> - 2012-09-19 03:56 +0000
              Re: PL/I nostalgia "robin" <robin51@dodo.com.au> - 2012-09-21 13:53 +1000
                Re: PL/I nostalgia glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> - 2012-09-21 07:00 +0000
                Re: PL/I nostalgia "robin" <robin51@dodo.com.au> - 2012-09-30 10:45 +1000

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