4/28/2023 0 Comments Alto disk archive![]() The Alto assembler was written by Ed McCreight. The Swat debugger was designed and implemented by Morris, and was later rewritten by Boggs. Later versions of CopyDisk could operate between two Altos connected by the Ethernet, or between an Alto running CopyDisk and another Alto running the IFS file server. As its name implies, it could copy a filesystem from one disk pack to another, initially on an Alto with two disk drives. ![]() ![]() Boggs later reimplemented the Scavenger.ĬopyDisk was designed and implemented by David R. designed and implemented the first version of the Scavenger, which scanned a disk pack and restored its file system to a consistent state. Sproull).Ī number of utility programs were written for the Alto OS. Author's web siteĪdditional system facilities in the form of packages or libraries were designed and implemented by a number of people, including Basic File System (BFS) (Lampson), B-trees (Ed McCreight), floating-point arithmetic (Sproull), sorting (McCreight), and cubic splines (Patrick C. ACM Operating Systems Review, Volume 11, Number 5 (Dec. An open operating system for a single-user machine. Internal memo, Xerox PARC, February 1973. It was implemented by Lampson with Gene McDaniel, Robert F. The Alto Operating System (OS) was designed by Butler Lampson, based on Stoy and Strachey's OS6. Runtime sources: BCPLRUNTIMESOURCE.DM!1>Īdditional documentation: (see memos_1973, memos_1974, memos_1975, memos_1977) Operating System (OS), packages, and utilities ACM Digital LibraryĬompiler sources: BCPLSOURCES.DM!1> Proceeding AFIPS '69 (Spring Joint Computer Conference), pages 557-566. A tool for compiler writing and systems programming. Memorandum-M-352, Project MAC, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, July 21, 1967. When the Alto project began, it was natural to continue using BCPL, which was used for most of the original system, server, and application software. At PARC, BCPL was used for early work on Data General Novas, using a compiler ported by James Curry based on the TX-2 implementation at MIT Lincoln Lab. The language and its compiler were designed to be easily ported to new computers. In the next sections, we look first at the Alto software written in the BCPL programming language, then Mesa, Smalltalk, and finally Lisp.īCPL was designed by Martin Richards at MIT in 1967 based on his previous work implementing CPL at the University of Cambridge. Communications of the ACM, Volume 19, Number 7 (July 1976), pages 395-404.Xerox PARC report CSL-75-7, November 1975.Ethernet: distributed packet switching for local computer networks. Siewiorek, Bell and Newell, McGraw-Hill, 1981, pages 549-572. Reprinted in Computer Structures: Principles and Examples, second edition, ed. Xerox PARC report CSL-79-11, August 1979. The working environment, network, software, and microcode that grew on the Alto are due to hard work and fine craftsmanship contributed by many members of the Computer Science Laboratory and System Science Laboratory of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center." Ĭ. The hardware described in this paper was designed by the authors together with Roger Bates, Tat Lam, Bob Metcalfe, and Severo Ornstein. "The concept and structure of the Alto are due primarily to Chuck Thacker, Ed McCreight, Butler Lampson, and Alan Kay. Two-part video recording of this talk: Collection of Computer History Museum.A History of Personal Workstations, Addison-Wesley, 1988. Personal Distributed Computing: The Alto and Ethernet Software. Personal Distributed Computing: The Alto and Ethernet Hardware. My task was to convert the vision of Lampson, Kay, and Taylor into working hardware." Ĭharles P. To the extent that CSL had project managers, I filled that role. "Although a number of people in CSL and SSL contributed to the specification of the new system, Butler Lampson, Alan Kay, and Robert Taylor were the individuals primarily responsible for shaping the design. Xerox internal memorandum, December 19, 1972. Here is Butler Lampson's original memo motivating the project: Thacker received the ACM Software System Award "For conceiving and guiding the development of the Xerox Alto System, which clearly demonstrates that a distributed personal computer system could provide a desirable and practical alternative to time-sharing." Provenance A walk through the archive: people and software A walk through the archive: people and software
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