This is a photo of myself (and the extremely more capable Matt) 'in the
programming zone':
https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNaw7BXGu1qeLDrin_azJmz9Fie3rE6S2NgK3q0NDcqkLoaO3adZ-4lm5xlBjv6VA/photo/AF1QipM44fJM0dGKL3z5NQU6PlYX2Um8VfHLNDOSy_3T?key=cmxCQ0JDLW5zQkpLNkhFbldOaGNSaUtVejVRLTJB
On 11/2/2016 11:38 PM, Mark Wickens wrote:
I recently discovered the very excellent website
http://pascal.hansotten.com devoted to all things Wirth.
I sent a message to the author, as detailed below, but I would
encourage anyone to visit the website - you will surely learn something?
Greetings from Windermere in the Lake District, England!
I read with interest your interview with John Reagan. His efforts on
the VAX Pascal Compiler, and more recently (well, in the last few
years or so) my discovery of the very excellent Theo De Klerk book on
VAX Pascal and it's excellent integration with the VMS operating
system have rekindled my love of this excellent implementation of Pascal.
I am the organiser of declegacy.org.uk - a 'mostly' annual event here
in Windermere where collectors of DEC equipment and ex-employees
gather to immerse themselves once again in the excellence of product
that was the result of DEC Engineering. I have tried a couple of times
to 'entice' John to provide a video narrative of his time at DEC -
but, thankfully, he is still a very busy man.
At DEC Legacy this time around for example I was very fortunate to
find myself in the 'programming zone' for a couple of hours - sat at a
VT terminal, trying to determine why my VAX Macro-32 fractal
generation programme would not run successfully on a DEC Alpha via the
VAX Macro Compiler. For those precious moments I could have been sat
at a piece of DEC equipment anywhere in the world. For a programmer
this is just intoxicating and all too rare these days.
I have a long standing interest in the legacy of Wirth - and indeed
DEC, as could be expected. When I was considering a programming
language for my PhD efforts on a DEC 3000/600 AXP running Digital Unix
3.2C in 1994 I would have been better using Modula-3 and ignoring the
C-based Khoros framework which was the path I eventual took (C was a
'better the devil you know' option at that point).
