By: Ireland (boh.delete@this.outlook.ie), April 8, 2017 1:39 pm
Room: Moderated Discussions
wumpus (lost.delete@this.in-a.cave.net) on April 8, 2017 9:49 am wrote:
>
> But the whole "computer operating inside a computer" religion didn't die with microcode and
> CISC. JAVA was probably the biggest commercial success, and Transmeta tried valiantly. Virtual
> Machines are a bit different (assuming they keep the same architecture), but presumably are
> related. Even on this board we hear the odd "do [architectural concept, last I heard was branch
> prediction**] in software", these are echos of the "computer on a computer" dream.
>
That might go back to Moses, and the commandments as far as computer science goes.
What I'm told, is that it's possible to actually go back and read 'everything' that Alan Turing ever wrote about computing. The reason being, is that Alan Turing wasn't like other early scientists in the field. He wrote a small amount of finished papers, but papers that were read and understood by a lot of very important people in the development of the science. The reason I mention that, is because the theme of using a smaller computer in order to emulate a much larger and more complex machine, is something that goes all the ways back to Turing. So it might be able to track down which exact paper, this idea originally comes from.
Gary Kildall, who was creator of the CP/M system for the early IBM personal computer - was influenced in large degree by that aspect of Turing's ideas (mentioned in this, I think - 'Legacy of Gary Kildall: The CP/M IEEE Milestone Dedication'). The other thing to mention I think, is that software architects such as Kildall, even though they're remembered more today for contributions to the 'small' computer, . . . they were very aware of how the much larger machines had worked. Maybe, I think, it is because they had such a good understanding of the larger machines, that they were so good at working with the smaller machine. They probably understood best, where the small machine was going to end up some day?
>
> But the whole "computer operating inside a computer" religion didn't die with microcode and
> CISC. JAVA was probably the biggest commercial success, and Transmeta tried valiantly. Virtual
> Machines are a bit different (assuming they keep the same architecture), but presumably are
> related. Even on this board we hear the odd "do [architectural concept, last I heard was branch
> prediction**] in software", these are echos of the "computer on a computer" dream.
>
That might go back to Moses, and the commandments as far as computer science goes.
What I'm told, is that it's possible to actually go back and read 'everything' that Alan Turing ever wrote about computing. The reason being, is that Alan Turing wasn't like other early scientists in the field. He wrote a small amount of finished papers, but papers that were read and understood by a lot of very important people in the development of the science. The reason I mention that, is because the theme of using a smaller computer in order to emulate a much larger and more complex machine, is something that goes all the ways back to Turing. So it might be able to track down which exact paper, this idea originally comes from.
Gary Kildall, who was creator of the CP/M system for the early IBM personal computer - was influenced in large degree by that aspect of Turing's ideas (mentioned in this, I think - 'Legacy of Gary Kildall: The CP/M IEEE Milestone Dedication'). The other thing to mention I think, is that software architects such as Kildall, even though they're remembered more today for contributions to the 'small' computer, . . . they were very aware of how the much larger machines had worked. Maybe, I think, it is because they had such a good understanding of the larger machines, that they were so good at working with the smaller machine. They probably understood best, where the small machine was going to end up some day?
