Re: M2 history - relations to Ada

["news.oxy.com" <Vladimir_Olensky@oxy.com>]

news.oxy.com wrote in message <7992oe$ram$1@remarQ.com>...

>robert_dewar@my-dejanews.com wrote in message
>>I don't believe that Modula-2 had much influence
>>on the Ada design, but I may be wrong. Certainly
>>the design of the modules facility for Algol-68
>>  <....> did have some influence.

>>Is the time right for Modula-2 to have
>>influenced the design (the time period was
>>1975-1978). I thought M2 was later than this,
>>but I may well be mistaken.

>I think it does not matter much which was defined first and whether M2
>influenced design of Ada 83 or not.


>Of course first M2 definition was published before Ada 83 definition as
well
>as first M2 implementations were available before first Ada
implementations.
>I have somewhere at home this M2 specification and can try to find it to
>verify the date.

*****************
I did some small historical research and found the following:

Below you will find some info from Niklaus Wirth papers and from his
"Programming in Modula-2".

Modula-2 is direct descendant of Pascal and  Modula.
Modula was specified and implemented in 1975.
In 1977 project "Lilith" was started in "Institute fur Informatic". This
project was aimed to develop hardware and software for new minicomputer
(prototype of modern PCs ?). System OS should be written using high-level
language.
The outcome of that was language Modula-2.
First Modula-2 implementation was on PDP-11 in 1979.
In March 1980 first public specification was published.
In 1981 M2 was passed to external users.
First specification size was 32 pages (text body) and  4 annexes took 31
page (in my text  so t may vary depending on font size).
High level OS independent multitasking Module "Processes" was based on ideas
of "Modula-1" and "Concurrent Pascal".

But most interesting is below.

When I was looking through Niklause Wirth description of language predefined
modules I found to my great surprise that he defined root Module "Windows"
and two descendant from it, namely  "TextWindows" and "GraficWindows" as
well as "Menu" and "CursorMenu" modules that were used to create GUI for
"Lilith" OS written in Modula-2.

How about that, then!  First "Windows" was created before Bill Gates wrote
his "DOS" for IBM PC.
Just imagine. It was almost ten years before Microsoft Windows appeared. And
it was multitasking system.

If Niklaus Wirth would be not only scientist but also a businessman and
registered "Windows" as his trademark we could have Niklaus Wirth "Windows"
instead Bill Gates  MS-Windows much yearlier. Maybe Bill Gates would be then
just  programmer in N.Wirth Company.  But of course N.Wirth was about ten
years ahead of time and there were not freely available personal computers
that. May be IBM did a great mistake choosing B.G. "DOS" as an OS for their
PC ?
If they selected "Lilith" as prototype than we could have now completely
different world !
I have some "Lilith" screen shorts. You won't believe ! It is almost the
same Windows.
This was as  a lightening that enlightened some deep corners of my memory.
Now I remember that in the very beginning of 90's   when I was using
TopSpeed Modula-2 in our  Research Institute ( I set it up as a mandate
language for a group of programmers that were writing some pieces of
software for my equipment)  we were using  module "Windows" very
extensively. When I heard about MS-Windows my first though was that this was
some new module for M2 but I was wrong then.


There is one more thing that comes to my mind now.
Twenty years have left since windows GUI concept was implemented by Nicklaus
Wirth and we are still talking about necessity of Windows GUI oriented Ada
RAD Toolkit with very little progress. This is amazing.

History is a great teacher in all times.


Regards,
Vladimir Olensky
(vladimir_olensky@yahoo.com)
(Vladimir_Olensky@oxy.com)
Telecommunication specialist,
Occidental C.I.S. Service, Inc. ( www.oxy.com )
Moscow,
Russia.