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000073_icon-group-sender _Wed Mar 9 09:28:35 1994.msg
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Received: by cheltenham.cs.arizona.edu; Wed, 9 Mar 1994 09:06:06 MST
Date: Wed, 09 Mar 1994 09:28:35 -0600 (CST)
From: Chris Tenaglia - 257-8765 <TENAGLIA@MIS.MCW.EDU>
Subject: Re: TOM
To: icon-group@cs.arizona.edu
Message-Id: <01H9RH7R4NXE8WWU3G@mis.mcw.edu>
Organization: Medical College of Wisconsin (Milwaukee, WI)
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About 10 years ago a company I worked for built IBM 360/20 compatible
workstations (believe it or not). I wrote a lot of manufacturing
software in BAL360 assembler back then. It didn't really have an
operating system, but rather a program loader. I started some work
on an operating system I called PLOS (Plan Language Operating System).
I read an Apple Whitepaper back then about the programmers goal shouldn't
necessarily be to reduce keystrokes, but rather 'brainstrokes'. For
example the backup command was SAVE and it worked like :
DOS> SAVE ALL SECTORS TO TAPE1 * FULL BACKUP
DOS> SAVE SOME SECTORS TO TAPE1 * INCREMENTAL BACKUP
DOS> SAVE ALL SECTORS FROM TAPE1 * FULL RESTORE
The system could recognize up to six tape drives, but only one floppy (8")
and only one hard disk. The parser in SAVE would look for ALL or SOME and
determine the meaning.
Then SECTORS (for 512 byte blocks) or TRACKS (for 17408 byte blocks)
Then FROM or TO for restore or backup
Then the TAPEn drive number.
My DOS was still basically a program loader but the original would only
accept 4 bytes of command (LOAD, RUN, DEL) and then prompt for the program
name which was 4 or 6 bytes. My loader permitted commands over 80 bytes
and programs could access those commands to parse them. Gee, what a
concept! ;-)
Chris Tenaglia (System Manager) | "The past explained,
Medical College of Wisconsin | the future fortold,
8701 W. Watertown Plank Rd. | the present largely appologized for."
Milwaukee, WI 53226 | Organon to The Doctor
(414)257-8765 |
tenaglia@mis.mcw.edu
> From: IN%"Ronan_Collis@mbnet.mb.ca" "Ronan_Collis" 8-MAR-1994 16:16:44.75
> To: IN%"icon-group@cs.arizona.edu"
> CC: IN%"Ronan_Collis@mbnet.mb.ca"
> Subj: TOM The language profile program
> If any group member has heard of TOM or any program like it please
> link me. TOM was written about 20 years ago for IBM 360-75 mainframes. It
> was an artificial intelligence interface between the user and the
> computer such that the user could in whatever his language was,
> define what was a sentence and what were words and what each word
> meant. It produced a spin-off which was a profile of the syntax and
> the dictionary for the user's idiolect (or personal dialect). A
> couple of years ago there was an article that a similar program had
> been made for vax or pc or spark. It is or was used in discourse or
> text linguistics or for any lesser used language in which it is
> necessary to investigate the lexical morphology. RC