MAINSAIL(ID:2209/mai002)

Commercialisation of SAIL 

MAchine INdependent SAIL. From XIDAK, Palo Alto CA, (415) 855- 9271.
Related languages
SAIL => MAINSAIL   Evolution of
References:
  • Wilcox (in Lederberg & Feigenbaum, [?]), "Comparison of Mainsail and Pascal". view details
  • Wilcox et al., "Mainsail Language Manual", Stanford University Medical Center view details
  • Wilcox, "The Mainsail Project: Developing Tools for Software Portability", Proc. 1st Annual Symposium on Computer Application in Medical Care, Washington DC (Oct 77). view details
  • Old Languages document distributed with DEC-10 tapes view details Extract: Announcement
    Mainsail (MAchine-INdependent Sail): Compiler
    > Comes from: Stanford University Medical Center
    The contact is:
    Clark R. Wilcox (Wilcox@SUMEX-AIM)
    SUMEX Computer Project
    Department of Genetics, Room TB105
    Stanford University Medical Center
    Stanford CA 94305

    The Mainsail project is about to go commercial, as XIDAK Inc.  (Cheap
    for educational institutions).

    > Invoke via: 'mainsail'. Extension: .MSA (or null).
    > System orientation: TENEX
    > Description:
    Under development at SUMEX by Clark R. Wilcox et al., this language
    may well be the long-awaited native-mode general-purpose programming
    language for the DEC-20.  It is a generalization of Sail, designed
    from scratch with portability and consistency as principle criteria.
    It is a serious effort, fully supported by the Biotechnology Resources
    Program of the National Institutes of Health.  All the power of Sail
    is there, but the hacks are gone and many of Sail's features have been
    extended, especially strings and records.  In addition, certain
    concepts have been adapted from other languages, such as the modules
    of Simula.  A wide variety of data types and control structures are
    supported.  Mainsail programs cannot be linked with programs written
    in other languages, but it is possible to write in-line assembler code
    or assembly-language modules.  In fact, Mainsail cannot be used with
    LINK; Mainsail provides its own combined dynamic linker and operating
    environment.  Since Mainsail programs are intended to look the same on
    any machine, some special features of TOPS-20 like filename
    recognition are not available.  Versions currently exist for TENEX
    (and therefore with very slight modification for TOPS-20), TOPS-10,
    UNIX, RSX-11M, and RT-11.  There are also versions under development
    (perhaps completed by the time you read this) for the VAX, MC68000,
    and IBM 370/30xx/43xx CMS.

    > Debugging: An interactive source-level debugger is expected.
    > References:

    1. Wilcox et al., "Mainsail Language Manual", Stanford University
        Medical Center (also available on line, see menu).
    2. Wilcox, "The Mainsail Project: Developing Tools for Software
        Portability", Proc. 1st Annual Symposium on Computer Application
        in Medical Care, Washington DC (Oct 77).
    3. Wilcox (in Lederberg & Feigenbaum, [?]), "Comparison of Mainsail
        and Pascal".

    * Menu:

    * Help:          (HLP:MAINSAIL.HLP)*
    * Hints:     (MSA:HINTS.TXT)*
    * PDP-10:     (MSA:PDP10.DOC)*
    * Manual:     (MSA:MAINSAIL.MANUAL)*

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