Programming languages in MTS

Sat, Nov 22, 2014

Summary

Language	Introduction	Features	Sample program
BASIC	Intro	Features	Narcissistic numbers
FORTRAN	Intro	Features	Emirp prime
MAD	Intro	Features	Mergesort
ALGOL 60	Intro	Features	Josephus problem
ALGOL W	Intro	Features	Priority queue
LISP	Intro	Features	Four bit adder
UTILISP	Intro	Features	LISP vs FORTRAN
PL/1	Intro	Features 1 Features 2	Radix sort
SNOBOL	Intro	Features	Date formats
RATFOR	Intro	Features	Emirp primes
FLECS	Intro	Features	Emirp primes
PIL	Intro	Features	Roman numerals
APL	Intro	Features	Knuth shuffle
Assembler	Intro	Features	Caesar cipher
GPSS	Intro	-	-
PLUS	Intro	Features	Grep
PL360	Intro	-	-

Introduction

MTS supported over 40 languages, representing a cross-section of programming tools available in 1988, from well known ones like LISP and FORTRAN to the more obscure such as GOM and PLUS.

In this series of posts I will take a look at each of these - plan of attack is 1-3 posts per language covering:

1. A brief introduction, how to get it working on MTS and “Hello World”
2. A tour of language features
3. A more complex example, either implementing a task from Rosetta Stone or running a classic piece of code for that language.

Some languages may warrant more or less attention, and I will also look at the programming environment such as the debugger and link editor.

Trying to do all this may be quixotic - and I may lose interest among all the FORTRAN dialects - but it will be interesting to see what was available then and how they compare to the languages of today.

I am a working programmer by trade rather than an academic so don’t expect too much deep insight or theory - and if you spot any mistakes please let me know.

For new users of MTS, follow the setup guide, log on as a regular user such as ST01 and check the ‘Prerequisites’ section in the first article for each language for how to get it running - in most cases no extra work is needed once you have MTS running.

Source code

Source code for each of the examples can be found on Github.

Coming up later

• ALGOL 68
• BCPL
• COBOL
• GM APL
• ICON
• LISPs
• PROLOG/KR
• XPLs

Specialised languages

• *CSMP Continuous System Modeling Program
• *UMIST An interactive text-processing language patterned after TRAC
• *CLPARSEGEN A parser generator that outputs PLUS code.

Cross assemblers

I will probably not look at these, unless they are especially interesting.

• *1130ASM IBM 1130 and 1800 Assembler
• *11ASR PDP-11 Assembler, version AN231
• *1ASR PDP-1 Assembler (obsolete in D6.0)
• *8ASR PDP-8 Assembler (obsolete in D6.0)
• *9ASR PDP-9 Assembler (obsolete in d6.0)
• *ASMT IBM TSS Assembler (5.0T2)
• *I8080ASR A relocatable cross-assembler for the INTEL 8080
• *M6800ASR An absolute cross-assembler for the Motorola M6800
• *M6809ASR An absolute cross-assembler for the Motorola 6809
• *MCS650XASR An absolute cross-assembler for the MOS Technology MCS6500 family
• *PDP11ASR A relocatable cross-assembler for the DEC PDP11
• *Z80ASR A Z80 cross-assembler
• UNSP:11PAL A DEC compatable PDP-11 assembler and simulator
• UNSP:F8ASR A cross-assembler for the Mostek F8
• UNSP:PLM A cross compiler for the INTEL 8080 PL/M language

Further information

This list is based on the information in the MTS Archive describing what languages were available at the time of D6.0 and which work today, including those where there is no license available.