From sentto-2719433-43-1011841338-gtoal=vt.com@returns.groups.yahoo.com Wed Jan 23 20:56:30 2002 Received: from n5.groups.yahoo.com (n5.groups.yahoo.com [216.115.96.55]) by admin.vt.com (8.8.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id UAA17207 for ; Wed, 23 Jan 2002 20:56:29 -0600 (CST) X-eGroups-Return: sentto-2719433-43-1011841338-gtoal=vt.com@returns.groups.yahoo.com Received: from [216.115.97.187] by n5.groups.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 24 Jan 2002 03:02:18 -0000 X-Sender: gtoal@vt.com X-Apparently-To: edinburgh-computer-history@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_1_3); 24 Jan 2002 03:02:17 -0000 Received: (qmail 71932 invoked from network); 24 Jan 2002 03:02:13 -0000 Received: from unknown (216.115.97.167) by m6.grp.snv.yahoo.com with QMQP; 24 Jan 2002 03:02:13 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO n34.groups.yahoo.com) (216.115.96.84) by mta1.grp.snv.yahoo.com with SMTP; 24 Jan 2002 03:02:13 -0000 Received: from [216.115.96.134] by n34.groups.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 24 Jan 2002 03:02:10 -0000 To: edinburgh-computer-history@yahoogroups.com Message-ID: In-Reply-To: <000e01c1a382$d07fd8c0$82db87d9@oemcomputer> User-Agent: eGroups-EW/0.82 X-Mailer: Yahoo Groups Message Poster From: "graham_toal" X-Originating-IP: 208.246.62.3 X-Yahoo-Profile: graham_toal MIME-Version: 1.0 Mailing-List: list edinburgh-computer-history@yahoogroups.com; contact edinburgh-computer-history-owner@yahoogroups.com Delivered-To: mailing list edinburgh-computer-history@yahoogroups.com Precedence: bulk List-Unsubscribe: Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 03:02:07 -0000 Subject: [ed-comp-hist] Re: First contact Reply-To: edinburgh-computer-history@yahoogroups.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Status: RO --- In edinburgh-computer-history@y..., "Hamish Dewar" wrote: > It is only recently that I became aware of the existence of this project -- through Mike Scott, whom I regularly bump into at Ceilidh dances here in Edinburgh (well, I'm not as proficient a dancer as he is). Thanks Hamish, it's really good to have you on board. > To return to the Edinburgh Computing History project, I find it intriguing, touching even, that anyone should be interested in re-visiting some of the old stuff created in Edinburgh. > For me, the period was one of great potential and invention, but in many ways the potential was not realised.There was too much emphasis on the individual virtuoso performance, and not enough on teamwork and stability. I accept my full share of the blame for that. I think probably the majority of us feel the same way - we (collectively) missed a great opportunity to shape the future of computer science worldwide. But you are wrong in one respect - the problem that Edinburgh had was not one of individuals - many successful projects (most???) have been the result of one person. The problem that Edinburgh had was twofold: firstly, we did not subscribe to the American ethic of 'publish or perish'. We were quite happy to rest contented once we had cracked a difficult problem. We didn't really care if anyone else knew, in fact it went against the grain to brag; secondly, almost everyone involved in those days was an academic; there were very few entrepreneurial types, and those who were went off to do their own thing (eg Grid luggable laptops) but not the *right* thing. A good manager with the commercial drive of a Bill Gates would without any doubt in my mind have taken the Edinburgh teams and made them into something that would have had global significance. > I would be quite embarassed to have my early implementations of ECCE exposed to view. By any standards of programming practice, they are appalling -- full of jumps and labels to achieve opportunistic code sharing, for example. But it did allow ECCE to be implemented, and efficiently implemented, on a number of modest hardware configurations. Although I'm hoping that this group can salvage some of the operating systems (yours, legos, EMAS etc) programs like Ecce are still a significant part of the Edinburgh culture and the fact that there have been maybe twenty different independently-written versions confirms that - and I think it's fascinating to watch the development of Ecce from those early sources with jumps etc to some of the current ones such as those in C and Pascal. (I vaguely remember a Coral60 implementation from my days at GEC even! Although it might have been in 4000 series assembler) > I have to wonder if there is any merit in resurrecting some of this stuff, except along the lines that George Bernard Shaw used about parents: that they should never hold themselves up to their children as an example, only as a warning. Please don't think that way!!!! That is the same sort of attitude that folks had back in the days. When you're a perfectionist, you never want to release anything to the world because you think you can still do better. But if we had done so 20 to 30 years ago, we wouldn't be sitting in front of a crap OS like Windows today. All the other competing systems that were contemporary with ours - Unix, EMACS, - they were all a pigs ear inside. We had *nothing* to be ashamed of. I think it is really important that we save that old work before it is lost forever because in the future, historians will look back on it with the same awe that we look back on Babbage's difference engine, and say "you know, that really was ahead of its time". > Finally, I still write the occasional IMP program, to meet an ad hoc computing requirement, such as plotting my blood pressure (rising) or the performance of my share portfolio (falling). This runs on a Clan workstation, designed by Igor Hansen, which is a sort of grandson of the APM machine (aka the Fred machine). I also use a laser printer with a Clan-designed controller, which supports a much-enhanced version of Layout, among other protocols. This really warms the cockles of my heart. > Warm greetings to all former students and colleagues, > Hamish Dewar. Don't be a stranger! And think about any place you may have stashed your early sources, because I hope to come knocking on your door soon (electronically I mean) to filch as many of them as you'll let us, to add to the archive. By the way, I received a copy of Vecce from Keith Refson today and will be using it to officially open the archives with as the first formal exhibit this weekend. regards Graham ------------------------ Yahoo! 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