FORTRAN-FORTRAN(ID:5450/for055)Livermore FORTRANLivermore FORTRAN written in FORTRAN. Compiled to Ultimate Assembler code, and then translated to four machine codes Places Related languages
References: BH: But then we really got to going strong. We got to the point where we were all LRLTRAN/FORTRAN and had our own compiler group set up. But I've worked on just about every compiler after they came along from the time I started at the Laboratory. Let's see, Sam Mendicino and George Sutherland did the first bootstrap. You know FORTRAN/FORTRAN. They used FORTRAN to write a FORTRAN file. And that was a Godsend. The program meant that there were no more single language programs. GAM: It grew into LRLTRAN eventually, didn't it? BH: Yes. That's what I mentioned, at that point around 1965 onward we were sort of on our own. We had our own language, our own version of FORTRAN. We were compatible with standard FORTRAN and still had special features for the Lab. GAM: I don't remember that. I remember for instance, you guys had something about the Divide that you rounded before it was completed or you didn't put it in the hierarchy of operations in the right place or something. BH: Well, you'll probably find that in all the conversion estimates, whether or not you round or not. You probably will find that that's a problem that won't go away. In one part of the country they are rounding in some instance, in another part of the country they are not rounding in this case. That's just an incompatibility in the numbering base. For one thing, that's in the binary and when you chop a binary bit that's one-fourth of a decimal digit maybe. I continued working on this large program and getting to know the LARC, and I was learning to use the FORTRAN compiler by translating what the IBM 7094 would do. I enjoyed my work. One day, there was a knock on my office door, and Hans Bruijnes walked in with Ed Schoonover. Hans, in his unique style, said, "Have you had enough time fooling around with this stuff? You want to do some real work?" What he offered me was the chance to join a group that Sam Mendicino had started, "FORTRANing FORTRAN." They were getting ready for the CDC 6600, which was coming in, and we'd just had the delivery of two CDC 3600s. Hans wanted to know if I would be willing to work in this new group, because they needed help to get this FORTRAN FORTRAN version off the ground. It sounded interesting to me, so I agreed, and I immediately transferred over to Sam's project. I worked on a package called "IOH," which was the I/O FORTRAN package. It was the software interface between the user's FORTRAN code and the buffer I/O software that drove the tapes and the disks. I started by inheriting a set of subroutines from a guy who had just left the Lab. He wrote the IOH software in FORTRAN, and after I picked it up, I continued to develop it in FORTRAN as well. It ran horribly slow, and my task was to get it to run fast. We sped the software up by trimming things down; I worked with Sam, who was doing the compiler. Along about that time, in the fall, Rich Zwakenberg joined the group, when he got out of the Cooler. Sam built up a group of about half a dozen people, including Bob Hughes and Jeannie Martin, to work on the FORTRAN project. Also there was a competing effort, in those days there was more than one system group. There was another group that was doing an alternate approach of putting a system on the CDC 6600. The GOB system then was being developed by Tad Kishi, Bob Abbott, and Norm Hardy. Norm worked on the communication between the PPU (peripheral processor) and the central processor (CPU). Thus, there was a little bit of competition at the time; we were working on the FORTRAN implemented system, and they were working on the GOB Operating system, which was written in assembly code. The effort turned out to be a real blessing for me, because I really enjoyed working in the systems area. It was a lot of fun and I met a lot of interesting people, Norm Hardy, Bob Abbott, Tad Kishi, and all the people in Sam's group. When the CDC 6600 arrived, we had the opportunity to put this FORTRAN FORTRAN compiler on the machine. Initially it ran slow, but we worked on it to improve its efficiency. I got the IOH software running pretty well. At the time, I received a lot of assistance from David Storch and George Sutherland. Also, I worked closely with Doug Kent, who did the buffer I/O software, Lee Tennant, and George Powles. The IOH software would feed calls to Doug's routines, and he would do the actual I/O data transfers. It turned out that we actually got to the point where we ran at acceptable speeds. Around 1964, the first CDC 6600 arrived. I had the opportunity to meet Seymour Cray for the first time when I went back to test some of our compiler software on the machine. I remember walking into the CDC Chippewa Falls lab one evening (they gave us time at night). There was guy sitting in the corner punching cards on the keypunch in a Lumberjack shirt, and it turned out it was Seymour. He whirled around and introduced himself, and he showed us how to get started. We spent the evening debugging our stuff. The next day, we met with Seymour and his staff, and then he took us out to lunch. I remember to this day, I was sitting across the table from Seymour Cray, and he was asking about what we were doing. I explained to him that we were "FORTRANing FORTRAN." He asked, "How many people are in the group?" I said, "Oh, there's six," and he looked at me and he said, "That sounds hopeless." By his way of thinking, that was way too many people. In Chippewa, he had one guy doing the compiler, one guy doing I/O, one guy doing the operating system, plus himself. That was his whole software staff! He was somewhat amused that we had six people working on something that he thought one person could handle, that was his style. So we did the FORTRANing FORTRAN, eventually as time went on the CDC 6600 machines arrived, and then the CDC 7600s came. FORTRANing the codes and the operating system became the distinction for us at Livermore. We benefited from the fact that we developed everything in a high-level language, and we received credit for that accomplishment both inside and outside the Lab. That was an exciting time, because we did it all. We started with the raw hardware, and we built everything, all the way up through the applications and eventually the graphic interfaces. The initial networking consisted of PPU communication with the CPU on the CDC 6600. I think we did it well. That's the thing that, for me, distinguishes those days from today. In those days, we were implementers and creators. Today, I think, Computation acts more like integrators; they integrate system software obtained from the outside. So I really look back fondly to the 1960s. DS: Yes, it was a fun machine. The 3600s were kind of fun, too--I think all the flashing lights were exciting. The 3600s, I believe, were interim machines for the 6600, because I think the 6600 was originally supposed to be here in 1963, according to our Lab paper. It was a 1963 machine, but I guess it must have been delayed for a year or so. So we got the interim machines. We had quite a bit to do with the software that was put on the 3600s. I think that was the beginning of our so-called FORTRAN-FORTRAN, our compiler written in a high-level language. Ultimately it became LRLTRAN and CHAT. Well, I was working on the I/O libraries for that and also on an assembler. Bernie Thornquist and I wrote the Ultimate Assembler, which was used by the compiler. It turned out not to be the "ultimate assembler," but that's what we called it until it was abandoned. It was table-driven, and would assemble for four machines that we had in the tables--the PDP-6, the 6600, the 3600, and possibly the 709, probably 7090. Anyway, we had four machines that we could assemble for, and the output of the compiler at that time was assembly language. And our assembler was the last pass in the compiler for quite a while. But, eventually it was replaced. We're kind of jumping around chronologically, but I guess you'll put it all together? External link: Online |