Brothers Brian and Barry Silverman are interested in the history of computer languages. As part of this interest they have worked on their own and in collaboration with such institutions as the Boston Computer Museum.
Several years ago they embarked on a mission to save bits of computer history that were in danger of disappearing. In particular they were interested in first implementations of interpreters and compilers that no longer had hardware/software on which they could run.
They have saved some interesting things.
The project they are just finishing is the first APL commercially released by IBM. They have the original source code and have made a 360 hardware and host OS emulator so that this original APL will run on any PC.
The starting point was an old source tape that a friend of theirs found in his basement. After reassembling the source, they then built a computer for it to run on by emulating in the 360, it's disks and terminals in Java.
The result is very authentic. The binary is essentially identical to the original. The only changes have been in the expansions of OS/360 macros.
According to Brian Silverman:
"We plan to demonstrate a reincarnation of APL\360 -- the original version. Our contribution in bringing it back to life was to create an emulated IBM 360 environment in Java. It's a complete CPU with channels, and even a subset of OS/360. We can't take much credit for the APL -- we used the source code from an early '70's version of the IBM program product. From the source (with NO modifications) we rebuilt a fully workable object that functions identically to the version of the day.
"In our talk we will briefly describe and show the other systems we've resurrected. And we'll explain the development path we took to get a relatively complex system going again. Finally we'll present our thinking about bringing authentic versions of old software back to life. It's challenging and rewarding. The hardest and most interesting part was nothing at all technical. It was the research and information gathering that put us in touch with a wellspring of historically good ideas and the talented pioneers behind them.
"There is a tendency in the software world to undervalue any technology that is old - our experience with the original APL directly contradicts that assertion."
Brian Silverman splits his time between Logo Computer Systems Inc. where he is the Director of Research and the MIT Media Lab where he is a Visiting Scientist.
Barry Silverman has been involved with software technology for the last 20 years on a wide variety of platforms, and owns a consulting company - Disus Inc.
Date: TUESDAY, May 26, 1998
Time: 18:30 (6:30 pm)
Location: ROOM V-154 (Television Studio "C" - ground floor,
North side of the bldg.)
Rogers Communication Building
80 Gould Street (North-East Corner of Church & Gould)
Toronto, Ontario