oldcoder • User • The Register Forums

ALGOL 60 at 60: The greatest computer language you've never used and grandaddy of the programming family tree

Sunday 2nd January 2022 15:46 GMT oldcoder

Computers got MUCH easier to use after DEC created some timesharing systems.

Even the old PDP-8 could do timesharing (as primitive as it was).

And CPM followed their design.

0 0

Sunday 2nd January 2022 15:25 GMT oldcoder

Re: Algol 68 is not ALGOL 60

That is the same problem C++ has.

0 0

Sunday 2nd January 2022 15:23 GMT oldcoder

Re: Ugh! PASCAL

C is a VERY solid language.

Which is why it is used to implement most operating systems now.

0 0

Sunday 2nd January 2022 15:21 GMT oldcoder

Re: It started my career move...

Frequently, the problem with such readers was that they were faster than the ability to transfer the byte just read to the host, and the result caused data overrun errors in the line.

I had to slow one down to 10 CPS or the read would fail.

0 0

Sunday 2nd January 2022 15:09 GMT oldcoder

Re: .. never used .. ?

VT100 became the ANSI standard terminal. Mostly because everybody tried to replicate it.

And still try - most terminal emulators include a VT100 emulation.

0 0

Sunday 2nd January 2022 15:05 GMT oldcoder

Re: .. never used .. ?

That was the fortran Do loop, not Pascal. which would skip the body entirely if the terminating condition was already met.

0 0

Sunday 2nd January 2022 14:56 GMT oldcoder

Re: No love for CORAL 66?

No, That was an older IBM OS/360.

part of the assembly for the stop was missing, so it took a second one to get it to work.

The DEC compilers would recognize the second one and report it as an error: "code cannot be reached".

0 0

Sunday 2nd January 2022 14:50 GMT oldcoder

Re: No love for CORAL 66?

No, that was an older compiler on IBM/OS 360.

The assembly for the axtual exit was partially missing, some some people would put two stop statements together that would then force it to exist.

0 0

Saturday 16th May 2020 20:51 GMT oldcoder

Re: Algol 68 is not ALGOL 60

The problem Algol 68 had was that it required a multi-level grammar (something like three different grammars depending on the context of where each was being used). Not something easy to do.

2 0

Linus Torvalds hails 'historic' Linux 5.10 for ditching defunct addressing artefact

Tuesday 27th October 2020 16:01 GMT oldcoder

There was no reference to %fs or %gs as registers. I think you missed the boat.

Only set_fs macro.

0 0

Linux kernel's Kroah-Hartman: We're not struggling to get new coders, it's code review that's the bottleneck

Tuesday 27th October 2020 15:44 GMT oldcoder

Re: "...as perfect code doesn't exist."

No, that is people ignoring Linux practice.

Linus does not like ifdefs with complex structures.

1 1

Windows to become emulation layer atop Linux kernel, predicts Eric Raymond

Wednesday 30th September 2020 02:07 GMT oldcoder

Re: Edge using chromium

It still has all of the Windows insecurity and failures, and almost none of the Linux performance or security.

0 0

With so many cloud services dependent on it, Azure Active Directory has become a single point of failure for Microsoft

Wednesday 30th September 2020 02:00 GMT oldcoder

Re: Latest service update has 3 separate fail points

"...their rollback testing was inadequate..."

their rollback testing was inadequate

Microsoft has a testing section? naaa. They laid them off quite a few years ago.

14 0

Wednesday 30th September 2020 01:57 GMT oldcoder

truth hurts.

5 12

Wednesday 30th September 2020 01:56 GMT oldcoder

Re: "we will never be able to avoid outages entirely"

"I doubt Azure AD is a single point of failure in anything but name."

Um. It can easily be a single point of failure even with multiple servers... when one server sends the garbage to the others... they all fall down.

18 0

'My wife tried to order some clothes tonight. When she logged in, she was in someone else's account ... Now someone's charged her card'

Thursday 27th August 2020 22:42 GMT oldcoder

Just more sloppy security.

One time I've seen this was where the company just used a "random" number in the query used to establish a session.

We demonstrated the failure several times - even to the point of being able to take over a managers web session and able to authorize whatever overtime we desired.

The number is essentially public information in a returned URL, thus allowing the client to replace the number with one of our own choosing.

Did they fix it by using an encrypted cookie value?

No - they just expanded the range of valid numbers... Made it harder to guess, but did not fix the problem.

4 0

Open-source Windows Terminal does the splits: There ain't no party like a multi-pane party

Sunday 1st December 2019 00:22 GMT oldcoder

Re: Hello Microsoft!

Actually, it is what Unix had in 1988/1989.

The old xview terminal emulator did this with something like a 64K terminal window buffer for text.

Excellent for capturing sequences for documentation.

0 0

That's Microsoft price: Now you can enjoy a BSOD from the comfort of your driving seat

Sunday 1st December 2019 00:13 GMT oldcoder

Re: Why on earth...

Ah yes.

The CE in CE-ME-NT.

:-)

11 0

The D in Systemd is for Directories: Poettering says his creation will phone /home in future

Friday 27th September 2019 00:21 GMT oldcoder

Re: re: Once desktop processing power became sufficient to crack the encryption

I used lpr which was allowed access... No one could write to the directory. And then it went through lpd anyway.

0 0

Windows 10 May 2019 Update thwarted by obscure tech known as 'external storage'

Wednesday 24th April 2019 17:35 GMT oldcoder

Re: @Peter Gathercole - Amiga days.....

Not even a good copy of CP/M

5 0

RIP: Microsoft finally pulls plug on last XP survivor... POSReady 2009

Thursday 11th April 2019 20:44 GMT oldcoder

Re: ReactOS (as the new XP)

That is what the power of a monopoly can do.

4 0

Thursday 11th April 2019 20:42 GMT oldcoder

Re: ReactOS (as the new XP)

Part of the problem with hackers is that they would tend to dissasemble Windows binaries to find out how they work in the first place.

That causes problems with the need for a "clean room" reimplementation to avoid the "copyright infringement" claims that would block its use, and pretty much kill the project.

0 0

Prepare yourselves for Windows 10 May-hem. Or is it June, no, July?

Sunday 7th April 2019 09:36 GMT oldcoder

Re: 'no alternative' = 'who cares about quality'

"they focus on "get it done" and profitability"

Leave out the "get it done" part.

What you are left with is the buggy, incomplete, and poorly "get it done" ....

And MS gets the "profitability".

2 0

What do WLinux and Benedict Cumberbatch have in common? They're both fond of Pengwin

Friday 15th March 2019 21:29 GMT oldcoder

Re: Microsoft dreams finally come true

Actually, it is opening the chance that other Windows applications will get ported to Linux.

1 3

Never thought we'd ever utter these words, but... can anyone recommend a spin doctor for NASA?

Thursday 14th March 2019 11:54 GMT oldcoder

Re: Doofuses!

That only happens when the mass is pulled to the center.

7 0

Congrats, Satya Nadella. In just five years, you've turned Microsoft from Neutral Evil to, er, merely True Neutral

Thursday 28th February 2019 11:49 GMT oldcoder

Re: "GPL is cancer"

Developers don't check licenses. Lawyers do.

0 2

Thursday 28th February 2019 11:42 GMT oldcoder

Re: Not even close

Don't forget... a good bit of those patches were provided due to MS being threatened with having their updates yanked for lack of support.

0 0

Born-again open-source enthusiast Microsoft rucks up at OpenChain

Saturday 9th February 2019 22:14 GMT oldcoder

is that "buff" a typeo?

Or should "Microsoft has continued to buff its open-source halo..."

"Microsoft has continued to bluff its open-source halo..."

:-)

0 1

Windows 10 can carry on slurping even when you're sure you yelled STOP!

Saturday 15th December 2018 15:24 GMT oldcoder

Re: Easy Instructions

Using step 4 you don't need any of the others...

3 0

Saturday 15th December 2018 15:22 GMT oldcoder

Google, Facebook and Amazon don't manufacture... amazon does sell branded hardware - made by others.

Really, Only Microsoft slurps everything you do.

2 0

Microsoft reveals terrible trio of bugs that knocked out Azure, Office 362.5 multi-factor auth logins for 14 hours

Tuesday 27th November 2018 11:29 GMT oldcoder

That is part of the problem when you artifically tie so many things together...

You can no longer separate them to reduce loads...

All that happens is the load keeps getting bigger and bigger - with more and more bugs that can't be fixed without breaking the entire thing.

5 0

Microsoft reveals train of mistakes that killed Azure in the South Central US 'incident'

Tuesday 18th September 2018 11:22 GMT oldcoder

Re: shiny new Azure Resource Manager (ARM)

Microsoft never really cared if terms/trademarks were already used or not...

They just use it anyway.

1 0

Tuesday 18th September 2018 11:17 GMT oldcoder

Re: The American Midwest is famous

There is always sunny Australia...

:-)

0 0

Hello 'WOS': Windows on Arm now has a price

Monday 3rd September 2018 05:12 GMT oldcoder

Re: I Wish You Luck

It takes a LOT of power and electronics to do the translation FAST.

It isn't a simple table lookup translation. Closer to being a compiler... The only RISC instructions passed on are those relative to the specific operation. It isn't the same sequence for different operands.

1 0