DOCSLIB.ORG

From Punched Cards to Flat Screens: a Technical Autobiography

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
From Punched Cards to Flat Screens: a Technical Autobiography From Punched Cards To Flat Screens A Technical Autobiography Philip Hazel From Punched Cards To Flat Screens Author: Philip Hazel Copyright © 2017 Philip Hazel Revision 0.03 11 August 2017 This memoir is published online under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives licence. You may download the PDF and share it with others as long as you make no changes, nor use the contents commercially. The following are links to a summary of the licence and to the licence itself, respectively: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/legalcode Contents Preface ......................................................................................................................... v 1. Early days .............................................................................................................. 1 2. A research student at Cambridge ................................................................... 6 Learning to use the Titan ....................................................................................... 7 Another programming language ......................................................................... 10 Going online .......................................................................................................... 12 The summer of ’68 ............................................................................................... 14 Yet more programming languages ..................................................................... 14 Other Titan interests ............................................................................................. 16 The PDP-8 ............................................................................................................. 17 A short stint in the Computing Service .............................................................. 18 3. A brief career as a lecturer ............................................................................. 19 4. A computer officer at Cambridge ................................................................. 21 Replacing the Titan .............................................................................................. 22 Many years, many computers ............................................................................. 23 5. The Phoenix Years ............................................................................................ 25 File management utilities ..................................................................................... 25 Timesharing and the birth of Phoenix ............................................................... 27 Mainframe peripherals ......................................................................................... 28 A dead-end operating system ............................................................................. 29 Programming languages ..................................................................................... 29 Other people’s projects ........................................................................................ 31 A user message system ...................................................................................... 33 The Jackdaw database ........................................................................................ 33 The Phoenix HELP system ................................................................................. 35 Replacing the 370/165 ......................................................................................... 35 Leaving Phoenix ................................................................................................... 37 6. Programming in communications ................................................................ 39 The Interdata-11 Remote Job Entry System .................................................... 41 7. Text editing and text formatting .................................................................... 43 ZED ......................................................................................................................... 43 iii A portable screen-based text editor ................................................................... 44 The successor to E ............................................................................................... 47 Text formatting ....................................................................................................... 47 Other uses of PostScript ...................................................................................... 49 The successor to GCAL ...................................................................................... 49 Using XML and DocBook .................................................................................... 50 8. Acorn computers, music printing, and athletics ...................................... 54 Acorn’s first 32-bit system ................................................................................... 54 The ARM processor ............................................................................................. 55 Music typesetting .................................................................................................. 56 Scoring athletics matches ................................................................................... 66 9. Email, the DNS, and regular expressions ................................................... 67 Email outside Cambridge .................................................................................... 68 Email on the Central Unix Service ..................................................................... 68 The problem of domain reversal ......................................................................... 69 JANET converts to Internet Protocol (IP) ......................................................... 70 Abandoning Sendmail .......................................................................................... 71 Managing the DNS ............................................................................................... 72 The start of Exim .................................................................................................. 73 Growth in the use of Exim ................................................................................... 76 Other contributors ................................................................................................. 77 Design re-thinks .................................................................................................... 78 Exim and ISPs ....................................................................................................... 78 Exim training .......................................................................................................... 79 Exim in Africa ........................................................................................................ 80 Other continents ................................................................................................... 82 Debian’s use of Exim ........................................................................................... 83 The Exim books .................................................................................................... 83 Exim in retrospect ................................................................................................. 84 Regular expressions and PCRE ........................................................................ 85 10. And finally ......................................................................................................... 91 11. Publications ...................................................................................................... 92 Index ........................................................................................................................... 94 iv Preface When I retired at the end of September 2007, I knew I would be expected to make a speech at the retirement lunch. Looking back over the 40 years that I had been part of the computing community in Cambridge, it struck me again just how much change there had been, and also how many different areas of computing I had worked in. For the younger colleagues who listened to my speech, the early years must seem like ancient history. A few minutes is a short time in which to summarize almost half a century, and afterwards I decided to write a longer account. This memoir is the result. It is a set of personal recollections of computation and computers and things that hap- pened in connection with them, even if only loosely. I have not attempted to include detailed descriptions of the machines’ hardware, as I was never a hard- ware person. Most of the technical detail is about software – after all, I was primarily a software developer – and inevitably it covers only the software that I wrote or used or had some dealings with. This is definitely not a history of the University of Cambridge Computing Service. When I first joined this fledgling organization, many of the staff were software developers, and I knew more or less what everybody was doing, but as we got bigger I knew less and less about areas other than my own specialities. By the time I retired, I think I was probably the only member of the Service who was still developing software full time. 2017: The first version of this memoir was published online in December, 2009. In 2017, ten years after I retired, I have revisited it and added a few further comments in paragraphs
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Acorn Master Service Manual
    British Broadcasting Corporation Master Series Microcomputer Service Manual British Broadcasting Corporation Master Series Microcomputer Service Manual Part No 0443,004 Issue 1 April 1986 M S S M W BBC ' B B C. C A C L 1986 N the whole or any part of the information contained , or the product described , this manual may be adapted or reproduced in any material form except with the prior written approval of A C L (A C). T product described in this manual and products for use with , are subject to continuous development and . A information of a technical nature and particulars of the product and its use ( including the information and particulars in this ) are given by A C in good . H, it is acknowledged that there may be errors or omissions in this . A list of details of any amendments or revisions to this manual can be obtained upon request from A C T E. A C welcome . A :- T E A C L N R C CB5 8PD A maintenance and service on the product must be carried out by A C authorised . A C can accept no liability whatsoever for any loss or damage caused by service or maintenance by unauthorised . T manual is intended only to assist the reader in the use of this , and therefore A C shall not be liable for any loss or damage whatsoever arising from the use of any information or particulars , or any error or omission , this , or any incorrect use of the . T A C . F 1986 P A C L 1 I 1 M S S M WARNING: THE COMPUTER MUST BE EARTHED IMPORTANT: T : G Y E B N B L T moulded plug must be used with the fuse and fuse carrier firmly in .
    [Show full text]
  • ARM Software Development Toolkit Version 2.11 User Guide
    211ug.book : SDT_UG_Front_cover.fm Page i Sunday, June 1, 1997 12:21 PM ARM Software Development Toolkit Version 2.11 User Guide Document number: ARM DUI 0040C Issued: May 1997 Copyright Advanced RISC Machines Ltd (ARM) 1996 Beta Draft Beta ENGLAND GERMANY Advanced RISC Machines Limited Advanced RISC Machines Limited Fulbourn Road Otto-Hahn Str. 13b Cherry Hinton 85521 Ottobrunn-Riemerling Cambridge CB1 4JN Munich UK Germany Telephone: +44 1223 400400 Telephone: +49 89 608 75545 Facsimile: +44 1223 400410 Facsimile: +49 89 608 75599 Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] JAPAN USA Advanced RISC Machines K.K. ARM USA Incorporated KSP West Bldg, 3F 300D, 3-2-1 Sakado Suite 5 Takatsu-ku, Kawasaki-shi 985 University Avenue Kanagawa Los Gatos 213 Japan CA 95030 USA Telephone: +81 44 850 1301 Telephone: +1 408 399 5199 Facsimile: +81 44 850 1308 Facsimile: +1 408 399 8854 Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] World Wide Web address: http://www.arm.com Partner Confidential - Final Draft 211ug.book : SDT_UG_Front_cover.fm Page ii Sunday, June 1, 1997 12:21 PM Proprietary Notice ARM, the ARM Powered logo and EmbeddedICE are trademarks of Advanced RISC Machines Ltd. Neither the whole nor any part of the information contained in, or the product described in, this manual may be adapted or reproduced in any material form except with the prior written permission of the copyright holder. The product described in this manual is subject to continuous developments and improvements. All particulars of the product and its use contained in this manual are given by ARM in good faith.
    [Show full text]
  • Model-Based System Engineering for Powertrain Systems Optimization Sandra Hamze
    Model-based System Engineering for Powertrain Systems Optimization Sandra Hamze To cite this version: Sandra Hamze. Model-based System Engineering for Powertrain Systems Optimization. Automatic Control Engineering. Université Grenoble Alpes, 2019. English. NNT : 2019GREAT055. tel- 02524432 HAL Id: tel-02524432 https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-02524432 Submitted on 30 Mar 2020 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. THÈSE pour obtenir le grade de DOCTEUR DE L’UNIVERSITÉ DE GRENOBLE ALPES Spécialité : Automatique-Productique Arrêté ministériel : 7 août 2006 Présentée par Sandra HAMZE Thèse dirigée par Emmanuel WITRANT et codirigée par Delphine BRESCH-PIETRI et Vincent TALON préparée au sein du laboratoire Grenoble Images Parole Signal Automatique (GIPSA-lab) dans l’école doctorale Electronique, Electrotechnique, Automatique, Traitement du Signal (EEATS) en collaboration avec Renault s.a.s Optimisation Multi-objectifs Inter-systèmes des Groupes Motopropulseurs Model-based System Engineering for Powertrain Systems Optimization 2 Thèse soutenue
    [Show full text]
  • Improving the Beaglebone Board with Embedded Ubuntu, Enhanced GPMC Driver and Python for Communication and Graphical Prototypes
    Final Master Thesis Improving the BeagleBone board with embedded Ubuntu, enhanced GPMC driver and Python for communication and graphical prototypes By RUBÉN GONZÁLEZ MUÑOZ Directed by MANUEL M. DOMINGUEZ PUMAR FINAL MASTER THESIS 30 ECTS, JULY 2015, ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONICS ENGINEERING Abstract Abstract BeagleBone is a low price, small size Linux embedded microcomputer with a full set of I/O pins and processing power for real-time applications, also expandable with cape pluggable boards. The current work has been focused on improving the performance of this board. In this case, the BeagleBone comes with a pre-installed Angstrom OS and with a cape board using a particular software “overlay” and applications. Due to a lack of support, this pre-installed OS has been replaced by Ubuntu. As a consequence, the cape software and applications need to be adapted. Another necessity that emerges from the stated changes is to improve the communications through a GPMC interface. The depicted driver has been built for the new system as well as synchronous variants, also developed and tested. Finally, a set of applications in Python using the cape functionalities has been developed. Some extra graphical features have been included as example. Contents Contents Abstract ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 5 List of figures .........................................................................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Implementation of Real-Time Applications on ARM Microcontroller
    Implementation of Real-Time Applications on ARM Microcontroller Fawad 1 and Dr. Imran Amin 2 [email protected] SZABIST Karachi, Pakistan Abstract: The ARM is a 32-bit reduced instruction set • Open platforms running complex operating systems computer(RISC) architecture for microprocessor developed for wireless consumer and imaging applications. by ARM Limited[1]. I is also known as Advance RISC[2] • Embedded real-time systems for mass storage, Machine. AMR is suitable for the low power applications automotive, industrial and networking applications. which made them leading in the mobile and embedded • Secure applications including smart cards and SIMs. electronics industry relatively low cost and small microprocessor and microcontroller. The ARM architecture is licensable. companies that are currently ARM licenses include Alcatel, Atmel, Broadcom, Intel, LG, NVIDIA, Yamaha ST Microelectronics, Samsung and many more. ARM processor families include the ARM7, ARM9, ARM11 and Cortex. The purpose of this Research is to study the ARM architecture and uses of it on real-time Applications using ARM Cortex-A8 microprocessor, which is one of the microprocessor from ARM family. Beagleboard[5] is used for experimental setup and testing real-time application on ARM microprocessor. The Beagle Board is a low-power, low-cost Single-board computer developed by worldwide Figure 1: A Conexant ARM processor used mainly in community. It is amazingly 3x3 inch width and height. As a routers open-source application the Beagle Board is the open- ARM has a vast experience on developing embedded hardware architecture which is available for embedded systems which delivers technology that achieves develop and further enhancement.
    [Show full text]
  • Construction of an Active Rectifier for a Transverse-Flux Wave Power Generator
    EXAMENSARBETE INOM ELEKTROTEKNIK, AVANCERAD NIVÅ, 30 HP STOCKHOLM, SVERIGE 2017 Construction of an Active Rectifier for a Transverse-Flux Wave Power Generator OLOF BRANDT LUNDQVIST KTH SKOLAN FÖR ELEKTRO- OCH SYSTEMTEKNIK 1 Sammanfattning Vågkraft är en energikälla som skulle kunna göra en avgörande skillnad i om- ställningen mot en hållbar energisektor. Tillväxten för vågkraft har dock inte varit lika snabb som tillväxten för andra förnybara energislag, såsom vindkraft och solkraft. Vissa tekniska hinder kvarstår innan ett stort genombrott för våg- kraft kan bli möjligt. Ett hinder fram tills nu har varit de låga spänningarna och de resulterande höga effektförlusterna i många vågkraftverk. En ny typ av våg- kraftsgenerator, som har tagits fram av Anders Hagnestål vid KTH i Stockholm, avser att lösa dessa problem. I det här examensarbetet behandlas det effekte- lektroniska omvandlingssystemet för Anders Hagneståls generator. Det beskriver planerings- och konstruktionsprocessen för en enfasig AC/DC-omvandlare, som så småningom skall bli en del av det större omvandlingssystemet för generatorn. Ett kontrollsystem för omvandlaren, baserat på hystereskontroll för strömmen, planeras och sätts ihop. Den färdiga enfasomvandlaren visar goda resultat under drift som växelriktare. Dock kvarstår visst konstruktionsarbete och viss kalibre- ring av det digitala kontrollsystemet innan omvandlaren kan användas för sin uppgift i effektomvandlingen hos vågkraftverket. 2 2 Abstract Wave power is an energy source which could make a decisive difference in the transition towards a more sustainable energy sector. The growth of wave power production has however not been as rapid as the growth in other renewable energy fields, such as wind power and solar power. Some technical obstacles remain before a major breakthrough for wave power can be expected.
    [Show full text]
  • David Hartley a Promise of Funding Has Been Received and an Outline Plan Including Cost Estimates and Timescales Has Been Drawn Up
    Issue Number 54 Spring 2011 Computer Conservation Society Aims and objectives The Computer Conservation Society (CCS) is a co-operative venture between the British Computer Society (BCS), the Science Museum of London and the Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) in Manchester. The CCS was constituted in September 1989 as a Specialist Group of the British Computer Society. It is thus covered by the Royal Charter and charitable status of the BCS. The aims of the CCS are: To promote the conservation of historic computers and to identify existing computers which may need to be archived in the future, To develop awareness of the importance of historic computers, To develop expertise in the conservation and restoration of historic computers, To represent the interests of Computer Conservation Society members with other bodies, To promote the study of historic computers, their use and the history of the computer industry, To publish information of relevance to these objectives for the information of Computer Conservation Society members and the wider public. Membership is open to anyone interested in computer conservation and the history of computing. The CCS is funded and supported by voluntary subscriptions from members, a grant from the BCS, fees from corporate membership, donations, and by the free use of the facilities of both museums. Some charges may be made for publications and attendance at seminars and conferences. There are a number of active Projects on specific computer restorations and early computer technologies and software.
    [Show full text]
  • Who Saysyou Can't Improve on Thebest?
    Who says you can’t improve on the best? The Best. Better. Since the day it was launched the BBC Micro has Above is a machine which at first glance looks been garlanded with praise. very like the best micro in Britain. One early reviewer called it `the limousine of home But it’s better. computers’ and virtually every independent assessment It’s the new, enhanced, BBC Micro B+. of it since has added weight to that description. Now you can have the legendary quality and The reasons are legion. reliability of the B, plus an extra 32K memory. First, its famous adaptability and expandability. And since this extra memory is largely used on the A feature which makes the BBC Micro invaluable in screen it allows wider use of the outstanding graphics. every corner of science, industry and education. You also get an additional two expansion ROM Then there are its exceptional graphics; its speed; sockets (making four available ROM sockets in all). its reliability. In other words, room for more applications And of course its language - BBC Basic, which and languages. today is the leading language in education and widely The acclaimed Acorn disc filing system is used in business and industry. included as standard for immediate access to a fast and All in all, quite simply, the best. efficient disc storage system. There are extra utility commands for disc and ROM management-thus maximising memory availability. And remember, the Model B+, like the B, is produced by Acorn Computers who have an unbeaten record for products of outstanding quality and reliability.
    [Show full text]
  • Computer Conservation Society
    Issue Number 88 Winter 2019/20 Computer Conservation Society Aims and Objectives The Computer Conservation Society (CCS) is a co-operative venture between BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT; the Science Museum of London; and the Science and Industry Museum (SIM) in Manchester. The CCS was constituted in September 1989 as a Specialist Group of the British Computer Society. It is thus covered by the Royal Charter and charitable status of BCS. The objects of the Computer Conservation Society (“Society”) are: To promote the conservation, restoration and reconstruction of historic computing systems and to identify existing computing systems which may need to be archived in the future; To develop awareness of the importance of historic computing systems; To develop expertise in the conservation, restoration and reconstruction of historic computing systems; To represent the interests of the Society with other bodies; To promote the study of historic computing systems, their use and the history of the computer industry; To publish information of relevance to these objectives for the information of Society members and the wider public. Membership is open to anyone interested in computer conservation and the history of computing. The CCS is funded and supported by a grant from BCS and from donations. There are a number of active projects on specific computer restorations and early computer technologies and software. Younger people are especially encouraged to take part in order to achieve skills transfer. The CCS also enjoys a close relationship with the National Museum of Computing. Resurrection The Journal of the Computer Conservation Society ISSN 0958-7403 Number 88 Winter 2019/20 Contents Society Activity 2 News Round-Up 9 The Data Curator 10 Paul Cockshott From Tea Shops to Computer Company: The Improbable 15 Story of LEO John Aeberhard Book Review: Early Computing in Britain Ferranti Ltd.
    [Show full text]
  • Acorn Risc Pc 600
    ACORN RISC PC 600 Acorn Acorns retort to the PowerMacs is an example of innovative design, with extensive expansion, the promise of RISC better cross-platform compatibility and graphics performance Archimedes owners only dreamed about. Ian PC 600 Burley gets a slice of the action. and CPU fans as the chip generates less than 1W of heat. Current ARM610s are 0.8 micron parts, and sample 0.6 micron parts are testing at 40MHz. One of the most striking aspects of the new RISC PC is its case, designed under the auspices of Allen Boothroyd, who designed the original BBC Micro and was a force behind hi-fi manufacturer Meridian. It is made of tough Bayer Bayblend ABS/Polycarbonate, which is used to make riot shields. Internal surfaces are coated to reduce radio frequency interference (RFI) but the external surface is an unpainted light grey. There is provision for screw-mounted peripherals inside but devices like CD-ROMs and hard disks will be clip-mounted Apple-style. Two twist-locking pins need to be turned 90° to get the case lid off. These can be padlocked and the case tethered. It takes less than a minute to open the case, swap processor modules and refit the lid, without any tools. Standard models have a slimline base case with ^ RISC PC Acorn Computers of Cambridge, and not their a two-expansion slot backplane; the front panel has a 600s get the colleagues from Cupertino, were the first to bring spring-loaded door to hide the floppy drive. If you need latest release affordable RISC computing to the masses.
    [Show full text]
  • ARM Command Line Workbook
    ARM Command Line Workbook CS160 Computer Organization Version 1.1 October 27th, 2002 Revised Fall 2005 ARM University Program Version 1.0 January 14, 1997 ARM Command Line Workbook Introduction Aim This workbook provides the student with a basic understanding of the facilities provided by the ARM Toolkit for command line users. Note: For all of the command line tools provided with the toolkit it is possible to get on- line help on the command line parameters by specifying the toolname followed by -help. Prerequisites Before getting started, you will need to add the ARM tools to your command path. Make the following change to the ~/.zsh_files/.zshrc file: • export PATH="$PATH:/pkgs/arm202u/bin" Next, you will need to add an environment variable so that the ARM compiler knows where to find the appropriate libraries. Make the following change to the ~/.zshrc file: • export ARMLIB="/pkgs/arm202u/lib" Ask the GTAs for help if you don’t know how to do this. When done, issue the commands: source ~/.zshrc ~cs160/bin/armsetup.pl The latter will create a hierarchy of subdirectories and files in a directory called arm within your cs160 directory. The reference /cmdline/hello.c thus should be read as ~/arm/cmdline/hello.c Compiler The ‘Hello World’ example program is a simple C program which calls a subroutine. This program file can be found as /cmdline/hello.c #include <stdio.h> /* Declare subroutine before used by main */ void subroutine (void); int main() { printf("Hello World from main\n"); subroutine(); printf("And Goodbye from main\n"); return 0; } /* Define subroutine */ void subroutine() { printf("Hello from subroutine\n"); } 2 ARM Command Line Workbook Exercise 1.1 Compile this program with the ARM C compiler type armcc -g hello.c The C compiler automatically invokes the linker to produce an executable with the same name as the C module but with no file extension.
    [Show full text]
  • Updated Virtualrpc Components for RISC OS 6
    ne of the main things that keeps me using my Risc PC is the versatility of the operating system - mainly due to it’s universal draw file format. For Oinstance I construct the centre pages in Artworks as this now has excellent PDF export facilities. However for proofing the magazine before it gets sent to the printers I like to do a printout to see if everything works properly. Because Artworks now can deal with multiple pages it is very easy to save each page either as an Artworks file or Draw file directly into the magazine’s Ovation Pro file by dragging and dropping. A two second job! Other computer platforms don’t generally have this facility of moving files directly into open application windows. Generally to move a file to another application you have to use the dreaded ‘save as’ filer window - choose a suitable format - navigate to where you need to save the file - save it - go to the other application - open a filer window - navigate to the saved file - open it in the new application. If you need to transfer a different file type you generally have to go through all that palaver again. Two seconds on RISC OS, thirty seconds on OS X or Windows. Draw is a great program with no real equivalent on a PC or Mac. For instance it can be put to good use in music for constructing objects the original program can’t do. I use the Sibelius music setting program on both RISC OS and Windows. The RISC OS still has one or two advantages over the PC version, one of which is it’s ability to export to Draw.
    [Show full text]