1. Forum
  2. Usenet
  3. COMP.LANG.MODULA2

  • Re: VOLITION

    From Chris Chiesa@21:1/5 to Randy Bush on Wed Jun 14 12:17:43 2023
    On Friday, October 8, 1993 at 12:30:35 AM UTC-4, Randy Bush wrote:
    and...@ESSEX.STFX.CA (John Andrea) writes:
    I just happen to have a manual for Volition Systems Modula-2 right here
    on my shelf.
    ...
    Author: Richard Gleaves
    Much of which was later published by Springer Verlag as "Modula-2 for Pascal Programmers." Gleaves's style was as simple, direct, and elegant as the language.
    --
    ra...@psg.com ...!uunet!m2xenix!randy

    And here I am, thirty years later, trying to boot, under vDos, copy of Volition Systems Modula-2 from a college course I took in 1985. The main screen comes up, but it never gets to accepting top-level-command input; just sits there chewing about 48% of
    the CPU. I suspect it may be looking for a second floppy, or a second Modula-2 volume (I'm booting something named SYSVOL, from the same "floppy" as M2.exe itseIf). Clearly, *something* it needs is not available where sought.

    Randy, if you still have that manual, and ever see this message, does it say anything about system prerequisites that I need to meet?

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From OrangeFish9737@21:1/5 to Chris Chiesa on Thu Jun 15 10:28:22 2023
    On 2023-06-14 15:17, Chris Chiesa wrote:
    On Friday, October 8, 1993 at 12:30:35 AM UTC-4, Randy Bush wrote:
    and...@ESSEX.STFX.CA (John Andrea) writes:
    I just happen to have a manual for Volition Systems Modula-2 right here
    on my shelf.
    ...
    Author: Richard Gleaves
    Much of which was later published by Springer Verlag as "Modula-2 for Pascal >> Programmers." Gleaves's style was as simple, direct, and elegant as the
    language.
    --
    ra...@psg.com ...!uunet!m2xenix!randy

    And here I am, thirty years later, trying to boot, under vDos, copy of Volition Systems Modula-2 from a college course I took in 1985. The main screen comes up, but it never gets to accepting top-level-command input; just sits there chewing about 48%
    of the CPU. I suspect it may be looking for a second floppy, or a second Modula-2 volume (I'm booting something named SYSVOL, from the same "floppy" as M2.exe itseIf). Clearly, *something* it needs is not available where sought.

    Randy, if you still have that manual, and ever see this message, does it say anything about system prerequisites that I need to meet?


    The Internet Archive has a 405-page manual on Volition Systems 0.3j (https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_volitionSy20.3jIBMPC_14753891),
    which may or may not help.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From rugxulo@21:1/5 to Chris Chiesa on Mon Jun 19 01:04:27 2023
    Hi,

    On Wednesday, June 14, 2023 at 2:17:44 PM UTC-5, Chris Chiesa wrote:
    And here I am, thirty years later, trying to boot, under vDos, copy of Volition Systems Modula-2 from a college course I took in 1985.
    The main screen comes up, but it never gets to accepting top-level-command input; just sits there chewing about 48% of the CPU. I suspect it may
    be looking for a second floppy, or a second Modula-2 volume (I'm
    booting something named SYSVOL, from the same "floppy" as M2.exe
    itseIf). Clearly, *something* it needs is not available where sought.

    Randy, if you still have that manual, and ever see this message, does it
    say anything about system prerequisites that I need to meet?

    A naive hint would be to try to run a TSR that logs what files are being opened.

    * http://cd.textfiles.com/simtel/simtel9310/MSDOS/SYSUTL/KGB104.ZIP

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Martin Brown@21:1/5 to Chris Chiesa on Thu Jun 22 21:15:04 2023
    On 14/06/2023 20:17, Chris Chiesa wrote:
    On Friday, October 8, 1993 at 12:30:35 AM UTC-4, Randy Bush wrote:
    and...@ESSEX.STFX.CA (John Andrea) writes:
    I just happen to have a manual for Volition Systems Modula-2 right here
    on my shelf.
    ...
    Author: Richard Gleaves
    Much of which was later published by Springer Verlag as "Modula-2 for Pascal >> Programmers." Gleaves's style was as simple, direct, and elegant as the
    language.
    --
    ra...@psg.com ...!uunet!m2xenix!randy

    And here I am, thirty years later, trying to boot, under vDos, copy of Volition Systems Modula-2 from a college course I took in 1985. The main screen comes up, but it never gets to accepting top-level-command input; just sits there chewing about 48%
    of the CPU. I suspect it may be looking for a second floppy, or a second Modula-2 volume (I'm booting something named SYSVOL, from the same "floppy" as M2.exe itseIf). Clearly, *something* it needs is not available where sought.

    Randy, if you still have that manual, and ever see this message, does it say anything about system prerequisites that I need to meet?

    You might be better off downloading a modern copy of XDS and adjusting
    your source code to compile with it. It was surprisingly good.

    I don't recall Volition being a player back in the 80's.
    JPI/Topspeed M2 & Logitech were the main ones.

    Is the Logitech compiler still out there?

    --
    Martin Brown

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Chris Burrows@21:1/5 to Martin Brown on Fri Jul 7 18:18:36 2023
    On Friday, June 23, 2023 at 5:45:13 AM UTC+9:30, Martin Brown wrote:

    I don't recall Volition being a player back in the 80's.

    A 1987 post in comp.lang.modula2 by Randy Bush titled 'One-pass' Compilation Issues mentions the Volition compilers. Here is an extract

    --------------------------------
    Volition's p-code system (they also did a completely different MC68000
    native system) was derived from the one-pass P2 compiler, and therefore
    could not implement the language as specified in PIM-2.3. They added
    FORWARD to procedure declaration, disallowed use before declaration, and
    did not support mutually importing internal modules.

    There was no negative user feedback on these restrictions. As the p-code compiler was quite fast for an interpretive implementation (2,000 lpm on
    a floppy based 68000 at 8MHz), the users seemed to feel the trade was worth
    it. This was in '81.

    Volition's native code compiler for the 68000 was written with the same restrictions. This product has been acquired and developed further by Masthaven, and their impressions of user feedback would be useful in
    evaluating the impact of one-pass restrictions." --------------------------------

    I have also used Volition's Modula-2 on a Sage 68000 computer in the guise of ScenicSoft Modula-2 and Pecan Modula2.

    JPI/Topspeed M2 & Logitech were the main ones.

    Is the Logitech compiler still out there?


    A summary of the evolution of Logitech Modula-2 is here:

    http://www.edm2.com/index.php/Logitech_Modula-2

    I suspect that v4 of Logitech Modula-2 was a rebadged version of Stony Brook Modula-2. The Stony Brook compiler is now available as freeware as ADW Modula-2

    https://www.modula2.org/adwm2/

    --
    Chris Burrows
    CFB Software
    https://www.astrobe.com/Modula2/

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)