Part 26 - Aug 28 2003

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#775 Re: [osFree] Alot of Acitivity and Alot of Discussion.
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Dale Erwin
Aug 30, 2003
Lynn H. Maxson wrote:

>
> I need to publish something in more detail than a series of
> chapters I did in Section 18, OS/2 projects, in the IBMFORUM on
> Compuserve. People want to know more about SL/I and the
> Developer's Assistant...and possibly the data
> repository/directory. So maybe I should follow the same
> advice I offered on this forum about documenting something
> completely before engaging in implementation.
>

I am well aware of how that advice is easier to give than to take.

Is SL/I one of those IBM internal languages used for system development?
I remember hearing of one called PL/S. The story I heard was that it
was a PL/I-like language whose output was an Assembler deck which could
then be fine-tuned in Assembler for the bit manipulations that aren't
possible in high-level, but was only available inside IBM. Of course,
I think the High Level Assembler is an exception to that. I still think
that name is an oxymoron, even though I understand (at least I presume)
that the name was chosen because of the structured macros. I always
wanted to use them in development, but none of the shops would allow it
because no one understood them and couldn't maintain them. I thought
to myself: f' chrissake it's Assembler and no one will understand any
of it anyway.

I agree that development in Intel-based assembly language is a daunting
task. It's the set-up that's so confusing. I have ALP (it's part of
the OS/2 toolkit), but I have never understood how to get started. The
instruction set is manageable. I wish there was a book on it... or at
least on SOME assembler that runs in OS/2 and is still available. Big
Iron Assembler is a piece of cake in comparison, and I rather miss being
able to do assembler. There once was an assembler that allowed one to
write 370 Assembler code on a PC. I still have it, but it doesn't run on
OS/2. That reminds me, I don't think I ever tried it in a VDM. Maybe I
have a surprise in store.

--
Dale Erwin
Salamanca 116
Pueblo Libre
Lima 21 PERU
Tel. +51(1)461-3084
Cel. +51(1)9743-6439

[admin]

#776 Re: [osFree] Alot of Acitivity and Alot of Discussion.
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Lynn H. Maxson
Aug 30, 2003
Dale Erwin writes:
"Is SL/I one of those IBM internal languages used for system
development? I remember hearing of one called PL/S. The
story I heard was that it was a PL/I-like language whose
output was an Assembler deck which could then be
fine-tuned in Assembler for the bit manipulations that aren't
possible in high-level, but was only available inside IBM. ..."

I think you've stumbled across a cultural thing here. After
some 36 years as an IBM employee I fall into the same
unimaginative name calling hole for which IBM is famous. IBM
went from Fortran VI to where changes made impossible
backward incompatibility and thus changed the name to New
Programming Language or NPL. Still unimaginative.
Unfortunately already trademarked by the Nuclear Physics
Lab. In another leap of unimagination IBM decided on
Programming Language/ One or PL/I.

I envision a language based on the best of LISP, APL, and PL/I
plus that of logic programming. Intending it as a universal
specification language and being bereft of imagination myself I
called it Specification Language/One or SL/I. Carrying this
descriptive name preference over imagination (or marketing
hype) I called the all-purpose software tool the "Developer's
Assistant" or DA.

I apologize if my lack of imagination confused you with what
you may have thought came from the minions of IBM.<g>

While I will probably never forgive Niklaus Wirth for his abuse
of the programming profession in his maturation from PASCAL
to MODULA II to Oberon, I do have to give him credit for his
work at Stanford on PL370 which did attempt to merge HLL
with some assembly language features. IBM itself internally
stepped through PL/2 through PL/8 eventually settling on
PL/S, where I think the "S" stands for "system" and not
"structured".

At any rate PL/S became the programming language of choice
for IBM strategic products like MVS, VSE, VM, IMS, CICS, and
DB2. It was the language of choice on the RISC AIX system
resulting in the C source code.

You are quite correct about the Advanced Assembly
Language, the successor to the H Level Assembly introduced
in 1970. I had the general opinion that it had more possibilities
and flexibility than the intellectual capacity of most
programmers.

You actually have at least two assembly language choices.
IBM's ALP, which you mentioned, and Watcom's WASM. You
start either one with "alp" or "wasm" at the command line.

If you could only have one book on assembly language, I
would probably select Michael Abrash's "Zen of Assembly
Language", now incorporated in the "Zen of Graphics
Programming". If you need sample code, you could download
it from IBM's DDK for OS/2 website.

If you have a mind to, you might download from Intel's
website the reference manual on the Pentium family
instruction set. In there each instruction is offered in three
equivalent forms actual (1GL), symbolic assembly (2GL), and
an HLL (3GL). That should indicate that you can incorporate
assembly language directly in an HLL. Something else I didn't
invent.<g>

[admin]

#777 Re: Alot of Acitivity and Alot of Discussion.
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Daniel Lee Kruse
Aug 31, 2003

Hide message history
--- In osFree@yahoogroups.com, "Lynn H. Maxson" <lmaxson@p...> wrote:
<snipped>
>
> You actually have at least two assembly language choices.
> IBM's ALP, which you mentioned, and Watcom's WASM. You
> start either one with "alp" or "wasm" at the command line.
>
Isn't nasm also a possible choice? Last I knew there were OS/2
binaries available on Hobbes.
>
<snipped>

[admin]

#778 Re: [osFree] Re: Alot of Acitivity and Alot of Discussion.
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Lynn H. Maxson
Aug 31, 2003
Daniel Lee Kruse writes:
"Isn't nasm also a possible choice? Last I knew there were
OS/2 binaries available on Hobbes."

Yes, MASM 5.1 and 6.0 for OS/2 are still available. Thank you
for the reminder.

[admin]

#779 Re: [osFree] Re: Alot of Acitivity and Alot of Discussion.
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Dale Erwin
Aug 31, 2003
Lynn H. Maxson wrote:

> Daniel Lee Kruse writes:
> "Isn't nasm also a possible choice? Last I knew there were
> OS/2 binaries available on Hobbes."
>
> Yes, MASM 5.1 and 6.0 for OS/2 are still available. Thank you
> for the reminder.

Available where?

Anyway, he said Nasm not Masm. I seem to recall seeing that (nasm)
on hobbes.
--
Dale Erwin
Salamanca 116
Pueblo Libre
Lima 21 PERU
Tel. +51(1)461-3084
Cel. +51(1)9743-6439

[admin]

#780 Re: [osFree] Re: Alot of Acitivity and Alot of Discussion.
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Lynn H. Maxson
Sep 1, 2003

> Yes, MASM 5.1 and 6.0 for OS/2 are still available. Thank

you

> for the reminder.

Available where? (from Dale Erwin).

From the IBM DDK website. Do a google search on 'ibm ddk'.
You should see an entry
'www3.software.ibm.com/regsvs/ddk/'. Go to it. Go through
the registration procedure. From the downloadable section
set of menus you should see one under Microsoft tools for
MASM 6.0. I didn't see one for MASM 5.1, but that may be in
one of the general tools sections.

Another responder suggested Hobbes, although a google
search there giving the Hobbes site and using its search option
failed to turn up either. I suspect both are on the IBM website.

[admin]

#781 Re: Alot of Acitivity and Alot of Discussion.
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Daniel Lee Kruse
Sep 1, 2003
Nasm can be found:
http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/cgi-bin/h-search?key=nasm

Hide message history
--- In osFree@yahoogroups.com, Dale Erwin <daleerwin@i...> wrote:
> Lynn H. Maxson wrote:
> > Daniel Lee Kruse writes:
> > "Isn't nasm also a possible choice? Last I knew there were
> > OS/2 binaries available on Hobbes."
> >
> > Yes, MASM 5.1 and 6.0 for OS/2 are still available. Thank you
> > for the reminder.
>
> Available where?
>
> Anyway, he said Nasm not Masm. I seem to recall seeing that (nasm)
> on hobbes.
> --
> Dale Erwin
> Salamanca 116
> Pueblo Libre
> Lima 21 PERU
> Tel. +51(1)461-3084
> Cel. +51(1)9743-6439

[admin]

#782 Re: [osFree] Re: Alot of Acitivity and Alot of Discussion.
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Lynn H. Maxson
Sep 1, 2003
Daniel Lee Kruse writes"
"Nasm can be found:
http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/cgi-bin/h-search?key=nasm"

Thank you. Yet another assembly language for OS/2. I
stayed with MASM due to their use in OS/2 device drivers. It's
quite possible that the others will work as well. I've only
used ALP and WASM on sample code for verification purposes.

[admin]

#783 Update or Move Site Of OSFree?
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Tom Lee Mullins
Sep 3, 2003
The OSFree site of http://www.osfree.org has not been updated
in quite awhile. Will it be updated? Could it be moved to or have
another site created at http://sourceforge.net and/or
http://www.netlabs.org ? (ie; http://osfree.sourceforge.net and/or
http://osfree.netlabs.org ?).

BigWarpGuy

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#784 [osFree] Update or Move Site Of OSFree?
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yuri_prokushev@mail.ru
Sep 4, 2003
* Answer on message from INET.OSFREE area

Hello!

Answer on message from Tom Lee Mullins to osFree@yahoogroups.com:

TLM> The OSFree site of http://www.osfree.org has not been updated
TLM> in quite awhile. Will it be updated? Could it be moved to or have
TLM> another site created at http://sourceforge.net and/or
TLM> http://www.netlabs.org ? (ie; http://osfree.sourceforge.net and/
TLM> or
TLM> http://osfree.netlabs.org ?).
Who will di it?

CU!

Yuri Prokushev
prokushev at freemail dot ru [http://sibyl.netlabs.org]