Path: csiph.com!v102.xanadu-bbs.net!xanadu-bbs.net!usenet.blueworldhosting.com!feeder01.blueworldhosting.com!border2.nntp.dca1.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!news.iecc.com!.POSTED!nerds-end From: Ivan Godard Newsgroups: comp.compilers Subject: Re: Algol history, was specifying semantics Date: Mon, 07 Jul 2014 10:48:46 -0700 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 19 Sender: news@iecc.com Approved: comp.compilers@iecc.com Message-ID: <14-07-019@comp.compilers> References: <14-06-010@comp.compilers> <14-06-023@comp.compilers> <14-06-025@comp.compilers> <14-06-027@comp.compilers> <14-06-030@comp.compilers> <14-06-031@comp.compilers> <14-06-035@comp.compilers> <14-07-001@comp.compilers> <14-07-005@comp.compilers> <14-07-015@comp.compilers> <14-07-018@comp.compilers> NNTP-Posting-Host: news.iecc.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: miucha.iecc.com 1404760100 92637 2001:470:1f07:1126:0:676f:7373:6970 (7 Jul 2014 19:08:20 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@iecc.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 7 Jul 2014 19:08:20 +0000 (UTC) Keywords: algol60, history, comment Posted-Date: 07 Jul 2014 15:08:20 EDT X-submission-address: compilers@iecc.com X-moderator-address: compilers-request@iecc.com X-FAQ-and-archives: http://compilers.iecc.com Xref: csiph.com comp.compilers:1309 > [As far as I know, the machine readable source was lost. > Even with a copy of the source, you'll need a copy of PL360, the > Algol-flavored assembler it was written in. -John] IMO, PL360 was the best language work that Wirth ever did. It was an expression assembler, as opposed to a conventional statement assembler, and was representative of a family of such languages with different target machines done by different people. The key idea was the absence of operator precedence; expressions were executed in strict left-to-right order, with operations for each machine op and explicit register names for operands: r5 := r3 + r2 * r1; (PL360) The target register served as the accumulator for the expression. [Agreed. Tight, clearly defined, efficient little language. Princeton let you run small PL360 and AlgolW programs on their mainframe without having an account when I was in high school. -John]