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Re: Is SOAP a washout? [OT]
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| Kindrick Ownby 2004-05-21, 1:30 pm |
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I first saw the acronym SOAP many years ago. My first
programming job was on an IBM 650
http://www.mta.ca/~amiller/ibm650/ibm650.htm
and coding was done numerically because an assembler had
not been written yet. Main memory was a 2000-word drum.
Each instruction specified where on the drum to go for the
next instruction.
The SOAP assembler came after I had moved to the IBM 1401.
The 'O' in the acronym meant 'optimizing' - the assembler,
depending on the timing of the instruction in hand, fixed
the location of the next instruction to minimize the time
before that next instruction passed under a read head.
It is amazing the amount of work done with this computer.
I coded a study of the behavior of two like atoms in the
presence of a catalyst - it cranked for hours. The folks at
the Instrumentation Lab at MIT programmed a major algebraic
compiler, MAC, on it.
Just reminiscing,
Kindrick
Peter E. C. Dashwood wrote:
> Isn't it always the way? You spend a heap of time and energy mastering
> something then it becomes obsolete overnight...
> (Learned Assembler, along came COBOL; learned ISAM, along came VSAM,
> learned VSAM, along came Relational Databases, learned HTML, along
> came Dreamweaver...sorry, but I'm sure you catch my drift...)
>
> At least that's what those nice people at MicroSoft would have us
> believe.
>
> As from the 1st of July, 2004, MicroSoft are withdrawing support for
> SOAP and in the meantime, its use is "deprecated".
[...]
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| Peter E. C. Dashwood 2004-05-22, 2:30 pm |
| Kindrick Ownby <kownby@sonic.net> wrote in message news:<8qqrc.12371$Fo4.163380@typhoon.sonic.net>...
> I first saw the acronym SOAP many years ago. My first
> programming job was on an IBM 650
>
> http://www.mta.ca/~amiller/ibm650/ibm650.htm
>
> and coding was done numerically because an assembler had
> not been written yet. Main memory was a 2000-word drum.
> Each instruction specified where on the drum to go for the
> next instruction.
>
> The SOAP assembler came after I had moved to the IBM 1401.
> The 'O' in the acronym meant 'optimizing' - the assembler,
> depending on the timing of the instruction in hand, fixed
> the location of the next instruction to minimize the time
> before that next instruction passed under a read head.
>
> It is amazing the amount of work done with this computer.
> I coded a study of the behavior of two like atoms in the
> presence of a catalyst - it cranked for hours. The folks at
> the Instrumentation Lab at MIT programmed a major algebraic
> compiler, MAC, on it.
>
> Just reminiscing,
>
> Kindrick
>
<<<
Well, thanks for sharing that with us Kindrick.
I remember (just) writing some Autocode for the IBM 1401. It kept
losing wordmarks. I remember suggesting to an IBM Engineer that they
should install a little box of spare wordmarks inside the CPU, and
whenever the machine lost one it could go to the box and get a spare,
but even as I spoke Gene Amdahl was revolutionising the industry with
his design for System 360...
Ah! Happy days...
Pete.
>
<snipped my previous>
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