Path: ...!weretis.net!feeder9.news.weretis.net!i2pn.org!i2pn2.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: mitchalsup@aol.com (MitchAlsup1)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Continuations
Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2024 17:45:39 +0000
Organization: Rocksolid Light
Message-ID: <cb26ff16276239b273de1a6b4d306326@www.novabbs.org>
References: <v6tbki$3g9rg$1@dont-email.me> <47689j5gbdg2runh3t7oq2thodmfkalno6@4ax.com> <v71vqu$gomv$9@dont-email.me> <116d9j5651mtjmq4bkjaheuf0pgpu6p0m8@4ax.com> <f8c6c5b5863ecfc1ad45bb415f0d2b49@www.novabbs.org> <v78s81$1tuta$1@dont-email.me> <sVSlO.45037$BYv6.44005@fx09.iad>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Injection-Info: i2pn2.org;
	logging-data="3623971"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@i2pn2.org";
	posting-account="65wTazMNTleAJDh/pRqmKE7ADni/0wesT78+pyiDW8A";
User-Agent: Rocksolid Light
X-Rslight-Site: $2y$10$5/CrhX1JWyxS11rzgI7cY.QONg2rbOfnSxDK9VObWX1qkuVBHzAem
X-Rslight-Posting-User: ac58ceb75ea22753186dae54d967fed894c3dce8
X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 4.0.0
Bytes: 2676
Lines: 41

On Wed, 17 Jul 2024 17:09:44 +0000, Scott Lurndal wrote:

> "Stephen Fuld" <SFuld@alumni.cmu.edu.invalid> writes:
>>MitchAlsup1 wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Especially the COBOL stuff like EDIT and EDIT-and-MARK.
>>
>>
>>Regarding EDIT, etc., I think there are three possibilities:
>>
>>1.	They were a bad idea from the start and never should have been put
>>into S/360.
>>
>>2.	Putting them into S/360 was the right decision at the time, but the
>>changing technology (i.e. they wouldn't fit into the initial CISC
>>microprocessors and RISC showed the functionality could be done other
>>ways) made putting them into newer designs a bad idea.
>>
>>3.	Putting them into S/360 was the right decision at the time but the
>>workloads changed. There was less requirement for things like actually
>>printing checks and general ledger reports, and programmers moved away
>>from COBOL, which was where EDIT was a natural fit, to languages where
>>there wasn't as natural fit, so not putting EDIT into newer CPUs was
>>the right decision.
>>
>>I suspect it was mostly number 3, but I think number 2 was a part of it.
>
> I also suspect it was (3).  Burroughs medium systems (B3500 etc) used
> the edit instruction (EDT) extensively for COBOL.

I suspect that as compute power grew, the kinds of things we wanted out
of EDIT changed.

negative numbers printed in red
negative numbers surrounded with parens (-123.45)
decimal point and comma LOCAL selection
NaN
INFINITY
...

making a fixed EDIT instruction fade into insignificance.