Wanted stuff (Was: Pretty good week)

From: lisard_at_zetnet.co.uk <(lisard_at_zetnet.co.uk)>
Date: Sat Feb 28 16:47:40 1998

[kip crosby]
   :>> a linn rekursiv (wouldn't you? ;> )
   :Okay. Now, one person mentioning this is one thing, but Tony coming
   :back and knowing what it IS (even though it's Tony) is too much for
   :me. Given the name Linn and the funny spelling, I keep thinking
   :this is something like a turntable, but if so, why mention it here?
   :What is it?

it's in the "great microprocessors" list, although it was a single-board
computer rather than an mpu. exact details slip our memory at the
moment, but the history is that the chairman of linn (yes, the company
who make the turntables) wanted a computer system to replace the ageing
systems already automating his production line. being something of a
techie, he analysed the available systems, but none of them did what he
wanted; so basically, they designed their own.

what they came up with was the machine that the intel 432 should have
been - the architecture of it was completely object-oriented, even down
to the handle:offset-based addressing. a lot of oo mechanisms were done
in hardware, there as no concept of linear address space, and the
machine ran under the steam of its own language, lingo (used in at least
one academic book on oo - we read it during our degree course - and
afawk not related to the inferno project, although it's possible...).
there was a byte article on it somewhere too (dick pountain).

sorry for the vagueness. we'd recommend looking at the great cpus list
for better detail.


-- Communa (together) we remember... we'll see you falling
you know soft spoken changes nothing to sing within her...

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Received on Sat Feb 28 1998 - 16:47:40 GMT