Re: Low-level vs. High-level programming (was My First Computer)

["John B. Matthews" <nospam@nospam.com>]

In article <_QfRa.10639$kI5.5692@nwrddc02.gnilink.net>,
 "M. Pender" <mpender@hotmail.com> wrote:

> Randy McLaughlin <randy@nospam.com> wrote in message
> news:Pp_Ka.616$Im5.226@fe03.atl2.webusenet.com...
> >
> > There are lots of strange (and weird) computer programming languages, most
> > all of these languages are history, RPG and others that had big enough
> > support (IBM in the 60's and 70's is as strong as it got) continue to be
> > used in one way or another.
> >
> > Look at LOGO, a non computational computer programming language
> > that was little more than a toy (the same basic language was written into
> > some toys).
> 
> LOGO had a very stable and efficient implementation for recursion that
> allowed it to run on very limited microcomputers.  IMHO it would be
> difficult or impossible to find any "serious" language of the day that could
> handle recursive algorithms as efficiently with the limited memory space,
> stack and CPU speed of the 1980s Apple II.
> 
> There were other implementations of LISP available for the Apple II (e.g.
> Owl Lisp), but they were not nearly as stable.
> 
> - Mike

Logo was a delightful environment, but not the only "serious" recursive 
stack machine in wide use on Apple II.

Apple's UCSD Pascal implemented a very efficient stack machine. Each 
stack frame had a static and dynamic link to allow recursion from an 
arbitrary nesting level.

Every implementation of Forth I saw on the Apple II (including the FIG 
Forth I adapted to ProDOS) used at least two stacks. Recursion was not 
as syntactically transparent as Pascal, but it was quite efficient.

Both of these were used in serious development and deployed commercially 
into the 90's.

[Newsgroups line altered.]

John
----
jmatthews at wright dot edu
www dot wright dot edu/~john.matthews/