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From: levine@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Jonathan M. Levine)
Newsgroups: comp.arch,comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: using (ugh!  yetch!) assembler
Message-ID: <4825@netnews.upenn.edu>
Date: 19 Aug 88 17:53:18 GMT
References: <60859@sun.uucp% <474@m3.mfci.UUCP% <2926@utastro.UUCP% <37014@linus.UUCP% <9763@eddie.MIT.EDU% <37247@linus.UUCP% <1148@anasaz.UUCP> <3008@ttidca.TTI.COM> <2689@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
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In article <2689@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> leem@jplpro.JPL.NASA.GOV (Lee Mellinger) writes:
>In article <3008@ttidca.TTI.COM> hollombe@ttidcb.tti.com (The Polymath) writes:
>|In article <1148@anasaz.UUCP> john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) writes:
>|}None of this is to imply that assembly language is a good way to do
>|}applications! Just to show that some extremely large systems are done
>|}that way.
>|
>|Another example:
>|
>|Most of the code in the Space Shuttle's on board computers is written in
>|assembler.  I know because I once had to document a large chunk of it (the
>|Initial Program Load (IPL) module).
>|
>Not so according to Barbra Kolkhost, IBM Federal Systems Division.
>[...]  The shuttle code
>is written on a mainframe computer in HAL/S and machine code is
>generated for the target machines (the AP-101's).  

The IPL module is essentially a bootstrap loader, and is probably written 
directly in assembly language to reduce the size of the generated code.

In any case, it would not be out of character for IBM to write code in a
high level language, but only distribute the generated assembler code (c.f.
VP/SP, MVS, etc.)

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Jonathan Levine					"Not necessarily.  I COULD
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