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From: Rich <rich@example.invalid>
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Schneier, Data and Goliath: no hope for privacy
Date: Thu, 27 Feb 2025 03:11:57 -0000 (UTC)
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Scott Dorsey <kludge@panix.com> wrote:
> In article <vpo4uc$2omvt$1@dont-email.me>, Rich  <rich@example.invalid> wrote:
>>I had (if memory serves) at least one Pascal class, one Fortran class, 
>>and an assembler (CDC Cyber 7000 - a really weird CPU on the inside) 
>>class, all required classes for Engineering.  Pascal class was trivial 
>>(had already done plenty of UCSD Pascal on Apple II in high-school) so 
>>just had to adjust to the small difference in the CDC Cyber Pascal we 
>>were using.  Fortran was similarly trivial, but oh did I come to hate 
>>Fortran in the end.  Just had to learn the "fortranisms", as I already 
>>understood the over-arching "how to program" aspects.  The assembler 
>>class was also itself trivial (had done loads of 6502 assembler by this 
>>point, and some 8086 assembler, provided one considered DOS's debug an 
>>'assembler' of sorts).  Just had to "learn the language" rather than 
>>the "how to program" part.
> 
> That's pretty unusual.  The reason why Fortran is a good thing is because
> engineers can't be trusted with pointers.

There might be that.  I was there before the rise of C as the "be all" 
language, which is how I had the Pascal and Fortran classes.  Five 
years later and it was all C.

> And COMPASS?  That's a very very strange assembler to teach....

It was the timeshare system the university had for students.  They had 
a Cyber 7600 and a Cyber 8600, I only ever had accounts on the 7600.  
But since it was the system they used, Compass (I'd forgotten that 
name, but that was it) was the assembler.

> I went to gatech which had Cyber machines which the CS folks avoided 
> like the plague.  COMPASS is not exactly a normal assembler and has a 
> lot of fast-float-performance craziness...  it is not something I'd 
> really teach anyone whom I was trying to teach about the principles 
> of computing or how systems work.

Well, the assembly class did come after two semesters of the other 
languages, and it did begin by presuming you "knew how to program" in 
the general sense.  But yes, indeed, a weird CPU and assembler as 
compared to other microprocessors that I was used to at the time.

> And the PPUs code?  That's worse than IBM channel controller stuff.  
> I'm sorry you had to do that.  --scott

Thankfully they didn't expect us to make use of the PPU stuff.  They 
just had us essentially cause an abort and effectively a Cyber core 
dump and that was what we turned in for our "execution runs", with 
circles around the hex (or was it octal?) digits in the dump that were 
the "answers".  I didn't question the "logic" of it, I just turned in 
what they wanted to see.  And although a 'weird' CPU to program, 
actually making the code perform whatever the assigned task they wanted 
wasn't hard, provided one knew how to program in the first place.