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From: Stephen Fuld <sfuld@alumni.cmu.edu.invalid>
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: COBOL, Article on new mainframe use
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 2024 11:31:29 -0700
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On 8/20/2024 9:51 AM, John Dallman wrote:
> In article <9V1xO.583702$qO%5.449825@fx16.iad>, scott@slp53.sl.home
> (Scott Lurndal) wrote:
> 
>> Burroughs Cobol 68 compiler was used to implement various
>> system utilities, including the disk/pack defragmenter.  Granted,
>> it had an 'ENTER SYMBOLIC' verb which allowed embedded assembler
>> :-).
> 
> Were Burroughs deliberately eccentric, or was that just an emergent
> property of the company?
> 
> I am so glad I did not take up the idea of specialising in Burroughs
> stuff after graduation. It was suggested because I was fond of Algol 68,
> but it would have been very career-limiting.

Of course, I can't comment on your career choices :-), but you are 
confusing two different computer lines.  Burroughs, like many of the big 
computer companies in the 1960s had multiple, incompatible, lines of 
computers.

The one to which Scott was referring was called the Medium Systems. 
They were decimal machines, intended for business, and mostly programmed 
in COBOL.  This was not unlike say some of the IBM lines of the day.

The "Algol oriented" systems were called the Large Scale systems.  By 
the standards of the day, you might call them "eccentric", but most 
people would also say innovative.  Among the innovations were 
hardware/software co-design and OS and system software written in a high 
level language.  Of course, they had some issues, and got caught in the 
demise of most mainframe architectures (it exists now in emulation).


-- 
  - Stephen Fuld
(e-mail address disguised to prevent spam)