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BCPL #416

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larsbrinkhoff opened this issue Jan 13, 2017 · 14 comments
Closed

BCPL #416

larsbrinkhoff opened this issue Jan 13, 2017 · 14 comments
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@larsbrinkhoff
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larsbrinkhoff commented Jan 13, 2017 •
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  • There is an MC: EMACS1; BCLPL 4, but nothing else in the final ITS backups.

  • There is a TOPS-20 BCPL in the Panda distribution:

    BCPL 3.3.3 1/6/78
Inline JSYS

  • BBN had a BCPL compiler for TENEX.
    http://bitsavers.org/pdf/bbn/tenex/TenexBCPL_1974.pdf

  • Huw Davies wrote in alt.sys.pdp10:

    There was certainly BCPL for TOPS-10. I did some "interesting" systems programming in at one stage before moving on to BLISS-10 as my prefered language. (I'm already anticipating the comments about
    my lack of taste :-)

  • There was a BCPL at University of Essex, which was used to write an early version of MUD, see MUD - game #390.
@hrlzm
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hrlzm commented Jan 13, 2017

I have found some stuff. Short of time for a couple of days. Will be back.

.type parse0.bcp
// BCPL COMPILER, WRITTEN BY:
// PETE GARDNER, COMPUTING CENTRE, UNIVERSITY OF ESSEX,
// WIVENHOE PARK, COLCHESTER, ESSEX. C04 3SQ.
$NOLIST
GET "SYSHDR"
GET "SYMHDR"
GET "BLDHDR"
$LIST

STATIC $(
NAMETREE=NIL; RLINE=NIL; NLPENDING=NIL; RECPT=NIL
SYMB=NIL; NULLTAG=NIL; TAGLIST=NIL; RECLEVEL=NIL
LIBP=NIL; ENTP=NIL; LDP=NIL; NILNODE=NIL
XREFLIST=NIL; LASTXREF=NIL; XREFGET=NIL; SYMBPP=NIL
$)

@hrlzm
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hrlzm commented Jan 14, 2017

Status update:
I have found my two tapes from March 1984, with MUD and BCPL on them. Holding them in my hand
at this very moment.
I SHOULD have them as .tap files, but there are many places to look.
However, I have the (hopefully) full contents on disk on my tops-10 system(s).
Files READ.ME and READ.MUD from the MUD directory:

Tommy,
This is MUD! The file READ.MUD is a short note from Richard Bartle.
The .MAS files are the source, in compressed format - use the SUBFIL
program to unpick them. However, it is all written in Essex BCPL, which
we sell under licence, so if you don't have it, let me know + I'll
arrange for licence forms to be sent to you. It isn't expensive - I
think 50 pounds for academic institutions - but we try to avoid
piracy if possible.
Enjoy your game!
Rick.

From Bartle R[2011,2776] on February 14, 1984 at 6:59 PM
The source files for MUD (ie BCPL files) in SUBFIL format are
as follows:
MUD.MAS[2011,2776]
MUD.TXT[2011,2776]
MUDTXT.MAS[2011,2776]
all on DSKB of course! They won't be much use, however, the .EXE file and
associated bits are
MUD.EXE[2011,2011]
*.DBA[2011,2011]
MUD.??M[2011,2011]
DBASE.EXE[2011,2653]
also on DSKB. If DBASE is used, then then MUD.TXT and MUDTXT.MAS are useful,
too.
There's another, smaller version of MUD called VALLEY. This consists
of: VALLEY.EXE[2011,2011]
VALLEY.??M[2011,2011]
and some of the files that MUD needs.
If sending files is a costly business, then the minimumneeded to
play MUD is MUD.EXE, .DBA and MUD.??M . If you want a smaller game, get
VALLEY. . If you want to correct minor bugs and do your own dungeons, get
DBASE.EXE and MUD.TXT . There's a (bad) database manipulation program, too,
POWER.EXE[2011,2011].

.cd 10,335,bcpl
Now at <10,335,bcpl> <055>

.dir

BCPL EXE 104 <155> 8-Feb-80 3H(103) DSKB: [10,335,BCPL]
BCPL MAS 582 <155> 12-Feb-80
BCPL00 EXE 132 <155> 8-Feb-80 3H(103)
BCPL01 EXE 144 <155> 8-Feb-80 3H(103)
BCPL02 EXE 104 <155> 8-Feb-80 3H(103)
BCPL03 EXE 28 <155> 8-Feb-80 3H(103)
360LIB MAS 12 <155> 17-Aug-78
ACS GET 1 <155> 2-Nov-77
ARRLIB GET 1 <155> 15-Aug-75
ARRLIB MAS 7 <155> 10-May-76
ARRLIB REL 3 <155> 15-Aug-75
ASSINT MAS 18 <155> 7-Sep-76
BCLDOC CTL 1 <155> 22-Nov-78
BCLEND RNM 1 <155> 6-May-76
BCLMAC MAC 5 <155> 6-Mar-75
BCLUSR RNM 3 <155> 19-Nov-75
BCPL CTL 5 <155> 22-Nov-78
BCPL HLP 5 <155> 31-Aug-78
BCPL RNM 206 <155> 15-Nov-78
BCPL TXT 11 <155> 21-Nov-78
BCPLDT HLP 2 <155> 15-Apr-75
BCPLDT MAS 171 <155> 25-May-76
BCPLDT REL 97 <155> 23-Mar-76
BCPLIB CTL 7 <155> 7-Oct-78
BCPLIB GET 2 <155> 23-Oct-75
BCPLIB RNM 78 <155> 7-Oct-78
BITS GET 2 <155> 25-Feb-75
BUILD CTL 7 <155> 31-Aug-78
CMDLIB GET 1 <155> 10-Sep-75
CMDLIB MAS 12 <155> 21-Feb-78
CMDLIB REL 6 <155> 21-Feb-78
COM22C SCM 5 <155> 26-Apr-78
COROUT GET 3 <155> 20-Nov-75
COROUT MAS 17 <155> 10-May-76
COROUT REL 5 <155> 26-Jan-77
DICLIB GET 3 <155> 23-Jul-76
DICLIB MAS 26 <155> 27-Jul-76
DICLIB REL 12 <155> 23-Jul-76
ERRORS GET 2 <155> 8-Jun-78
GLOBAL BCL 3 <155> 13-Mar-75
GLOBAL CTL 2 <155> 29-Sep-77
GLOBAL REL 83 <155> 13-Mar-75
ICLLIB MAS 29 <155> 7-Mar-79
IOLIB GET 1 <155> 23-Oct-75
IOPACK GET 1 <155> 7-Oct-78
IOUUO GET 1 <155> 7-Feb-75
JOBDAT GET 1 <155> 7-Feb-75
KERNEL GET 1 <155> 7-Oct-78
LOWLIB REL 131 <155> 8-Feb-80
QUEUER MAS 177 <155> 26-Oct-78
RFS GET 3 <155> 15-Sep-75
RFSLIB GET 1 <155> 19-Sep-75
RFSLIB MAS 38 <155> 22-Oct-76
RFSLIB REL 28 <155> 19-Feb-76
SCB GET 5 <155> 21-Feb-78
SCNLIB MAS 56 <155> 9-Oct-78
SIMULA MAS 18 <155> 25-Nov-75
SUBFIL BCL 19 <155> 15-Sep-78
SUBFIL CTL 2 <155> 29-Sep-77
SUBFIL EXE 56 <155> 15-Sep-78 3B(13)
SUBFIL HLP 5 <155> 31-Oct-75
SYNLIB REL 10 <155> 15-Apr-75
USEFUL GET 1 <155> 7-Oct-78
BCPLIB MAS 227 <155> 12-Feb-80
BCPL DIR 7 <155> 20-Apr-79
BCPLIB REL 137 <155> 7-Feb-80
Total of 2874 blocks in 66 files on DSKB: [10,335,BCPL]

Will set this up for public access somehow next week.

--Johnny

@larsbrinkhoff
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Thanks @hrlzm!

I got the MUD sources from Richard Bartle yesterday. I'm just awaiting explicit permission to publish the files. However, everone thought Essex BCPL was lost forever, so this is most exciting!

@hrlzm
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hrlzm commented Jan 15, 2017

Done so far:

https://www.pdc.kth.se/~bygg/tops/BCPL.tap
https://www.pdc.kth.se/~bygg/tops/MUD.tap

These files should work directly with your tops-10 machine.

For those of you without access to tops-10, I will extract all the .MAS files and produce a set of all
the text files in some format, like a .tar or .zip file. This will happen soon, but not today. :-(

--Johnny

@larsbrinkhoff
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I created a new PDP-10/essex-bcpl repository.

Just the tape image for now. My copy of t10backup.c didn't handle the image too well. I had to hack it to get all files extracted, so I'm not sure they're ok. And of course, I can't do anything about the master files.

@larsbrinkhoff
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I think more research on this is beoynd the scope of this ITS repository.

@hansliss
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@larsbrinkhoff and @hrlzm, I have quite a lot of Essex BCPL stuff available, but it's not quite up and running yet. I have this in my directory in the Panda system, restored from an old tape image:
TOPS20:
BCPL.DOC.1;P775250 3 6860(7) 11-Apr-84 00:40:35
.EXE.1;P775250 26 66560(7) 8-Aug-84 18:32:10
.GUI.1;P775250 26 65914(7) 11-Apr-84 01:30:03
.HELP.1;P775252 2 3300(7) 11-Apr-84 01:39:30
.MAN.1;P775250 68 173890(7) 11-Apr-84 00:42:57
BCPL00.EXE.1;P775250 33 84480(7) 8-Aug-84 18:57:36
BCPL01.EXE.1;P775250 36 92160(7) 8-Aug-84 23:12:28
BCPL02.EXE.1;P775250 26 66560(7) 8-Aug-84 23:57:19
BCPL03.EXE.1;P775250 7 17920(7) 9-Aug-84 00:14:15

Total of 227 pages in 9 files

I managed to compile a test program, but i can't LOAD it because the system is missing BCPLIB.REL. I do have a set of source files, ostensibly for BCPLIB and others, but I haven't tried transferring them or building anything from them yet:
-r--r--r-- 1 hansl hansl 612 Jul 25 1996 acs.get
-r--r--r-- 1 hansl hansl 0 Jul 25 1996 bclrun.000
-r--r--r-- 1 hansl hansl 850 Jul 25 1996 bclrun.bcp
-r--r--r-- 1 hansl hansl 6699 Jul 25 1996 bcpl.doc
-r--r--r-- 1 hansl hansl 64332 Jul 25 1996 bcpl.gui
-r--r--r-- 1 hansl hansl 3210 Jul 25 1996 bcpl.hlp
-r--r--r-- 1 hansl hansl 907 Jul 25 1996 bcplib.get
-r--r--r-- 1 hansl hansl 139547 Jul 25 1996 bcplib.mas
-r--r--r-- 1 hansl hansl 169064 Jul 25 1996 bcpl.man
-r--r--r-- 1 hansl hansl 700 Jul 25 1996 bits.get
-r--r--r-- 1 hansl hansl 764 Jul 25 1996 errors.get
-r--r--r-- 1 hansl hansl 213 Jul 25 1996 iolib.get
-r--r--r-- 1 hansl hansl 397 Jul 25 1996 iopack.get
-r--r--r-- 1 hansl hansl 162 Jul 25 1996 iouuo.get
-r--r--r-- 1 hansl hansl 284 Jul 25 1996 jobdat.get
-r--r--r-- 1 hansl hansl 332 Jul 25 1996 kernel.get
-r--r--r-- 1 hansl hansl 1316 Jul 25 1996 rfs.get
-r--r--r-- 1 hansl hansl 405 Jul 25 1996 rfslib.get
-r--r--r-- 1 hansl hansl 23072 Jul 25 1996 rfslib.mas
-r--r--r-- 1 hansl hansl 2845 Jul 25 1996 scb.get
-r--r--r-- 1 hansl hansl 82 Jul 25 1996 test.bcl
-r--r--r-- 1 hansl hansl 410 Jul 25 1996 test.lst
-r--r--r-- 1 hansl hansl 1123 Jul 25 1996 trans.tbl
-r--r--r-- 1 hansl hansl 193 Jul 25 1996 useful.get

@larsbrinkhoff
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@hansliss Great! @hrlzm's tape image is here:
https://github.com/PDP-10/essex-bcpl

@hansliss
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hansliss commented Dec 11, 2017 via email

@larsbrinkhoff
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@hansliss Any update on your BCPL stuff?

@hansliss
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hansliss commented Jan 26, 2018 via email

@larsbrinkhoff
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@hansliss,

@quentinnuk has installed Esssex BCPL and built MUD:
https://www.quentin.org.uk/tag/bcpl/

@hansliss
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hansliss commented Oct 26, 2018 via email

@larsbrinkhoff
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larsbrinkhoff commented Mar 26, 2022 •
edited

FYI, the BBN BCPL compiler may have been found:

// Code Generator for BCPL on TENEX

https://github.com/PDP-10/tenex-bcpl

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