[Simh] new papers on von Neumann's programs and machine

[Lyle Bickley]

On Sat, 17 Nov 2012 09:15:47 -0700 (MST)
"Nelson H. F. Beebe" <beebe at math.utah.edu> wrote:

> [This posting is slightly off-target, because it is about virtual
> machines, and not Simh specifically.  Nevertheless, the poster feels
> that it may well be of interest to list readers.]
> 
> The latest issue of the IEEE journal Computer arrived in my mailbox a
> couple of days ago.  It contains an interesting article that describes
> an emulator for John von Neumann's IAS (Institute for Advanced Study)
> computer, designed in the late 1940s, but not fully operational until
> 1952 (see, e.g.,
> 
> 	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAS_machine
> 
> ).
> 
> The article also describes the testing of several early programs
> written by von Neumann and his close collaborator, Herman Goldstine.
> The article authors report finding several bugs in the programs (all
> of which were published about five years before actual hardware became
> operational).  Some of the errors arise from transcription from
> technical reports into the volumes of the Collected Works of John von
> Neumann but others were real bugs in the original programs.  This
> demonstrates once again that unless published program code has
> actually been run on a digital computer, it is probably wrong.
> 
> The new article contains further references, one of which is about the
> emulator itself, and is included below.  There is also an important
> earlier third paper that is not cited by the new article.  Here is a
> summary of those references, with links:
> 
> 	Donald E. Knuth
> 	[John] von Neumann's first computer program
> 	ACM Computing Surveys 2(4) 247--260 December 1970
> 	http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/356580.356581
> 
> 	Barry S. Fagin and Dale J. Skrien
> 	IASSim: a Programmable Emulator for the Princeton IAS/von
> Neumann Machine Proceedings of the 42nd ACM Technical Symposium on
> Computer Science Education (SIGCSE 11), 359--364 (2011)
> 	http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/1953163.1953271
> 	http://www.cs.colby.edu/djskrien/CPUSim/
> 	http://www.cs.colby.edu/djskrien/IASSim/

Thanks for sharing these links! I've been playing with the IAS
Simulator, and it is an excellent tool to become familiar with what it
was like to program the IAS! I plan on passing this information on to
the volunteers at the Computer History Museum! (I'm a member of the
PDP-1 Restoration Team).

I will, of course, give you credit for bringing it to my attention!

--snip--

Cheers,
Lyle

Bickley Consulting West Inc.
http://bickleywest.com

"Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"