[Simh] pdp7/decsys bug?

[Rich Alderson]

> From: "Daniel Baum" <daniel at type34.info>
> Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2007 07:28:07 +0300

Apparently quoting Nelson Beebe, Daniel writes

>> I have this bliss version:

>> @get sys:bliss

>> @i ver
>> Panda Distribution, PANDA TOPS-20 Monitor 7.1(21733)-4
>> PANDA TOPS-20 Command processor 7.1(4453)-4
>> Program is BLISS, version is 4.2(236)

and comments

> From what I read, there were apparently two versions of Bliss, only one of 
> which was called Bliss-36. Bliss-36 cost lots of money, but the other 
> version was apparently free, and useless, from what I read.

In which case what you read was misleading if not an outright lie.

The original BLISS-10 was used to create the Fortran compiler that replaced the
original F40 for the PDP-10.  The compiler was included on the installation
tape for Fortran, in point of fact.  Given that this compiler was a successful
product for quite a long time, I would be hard put characterize BLISS-10 as
"useless".

Bliss-36 was a re-implementation for the 36-bit architecture which was intended
to harmonize with the VAX Bliss-32 and PDP-11 Bliss-16 products, such that code
could be shared among the three architectures.  (BLISS-10 and BLISS-11 were not
close enough to allow this.)  This was done in the later Digital era, leading
to very high pricing of all three compilers.

In the mid-1990's, Digital announced that they were making Bliss-32 and
Bliss-16 cost-free products to holders of licenses for VMS and those -11 OSes
that could use it.  At that time, I was working with Digital on the transfer of
the 36-bit intellectual property to my then-employer; I suggested to my contact
at Digital that if they were going to make those compilers free, then they
ought to do the same for Bliss-36.

Digital accepted my suggestion, allowing us to include it in our software
offering on the hardware platform we sold.

> My version identifies itself as TOPS-10 Bliss-36  4B(236) in the .LST file 
> of the program that I compiled.

> I wonder if it's possible that you have the wrong version.

What you are seeing is an artifact of how Tops-10 types out the version word in
memory vs. how Tops-20 does so:  Tops-10 treats the minor version as a capital
alpha character, while Tops-20 treats it as a dotted numeric.  The edit level
is treated the same by both systems.

Thus, "4B(236)" and "4.2(236)" are exactly the same release of Bliss, and the
problem reported is not "the wrong version".

                                                                Rich Alderson