Re: Languages From Hell -- your favorite one could walk again!

Eric Raymond <esr@Netaxs.com> wrote:
>I'm looking for specifications of archaic computer languages.


How about Magic/L? It's an incrementally compiled/interpreted language
that combines the worst features of every language and adds a couple of
it own. Here's a code sample. Note that the spaces are REQUIRED! (i.e.
this language sees "ptr(" as different from "ptr (". ) That
and the pereverted pascal syntax are the languages biggest problems.
The language had a saving grace, though. It had a built in Macro Assembler.
I've used it on Sun 2s and 3s. Apparently it worked on 8080 and 8086 type
processors as well. It can have multiple statements on a line if the
statements are separated by the ;; operator.


Magic/L was sold by LOKI Engineering circa 1982. I don't know if they are
still in business.


The language had a saving grace, though. It had a built in Macro
Assembler. I've used it on Sun 2s and 3s. Apparently it worked on
8080 and 8086 type processors as well. It can have multiple
statements on a line if the statements are separated by the ;;
operator.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
; @(#)carsph.mg 1.1 1/25/89
; TRANSFORMATION FROM CARTESIAN TO SPHERICAL COORDINATES
; CALLING SEQUENCE
; CARSPH ( X , ptr ( XLONG ) , ptr ( XLAT ) )
;
; X IS A UNIT 3-VECTOR
; XLONG,XLAT WILL CONTAIN THE LONGITUDE AND LATITUDE ON RETURN
; CORRESPONDING TO THE VECTOR X


define carsph
  real x ( 3 ) , xlong ( 1 ) , xlat ( 1 )
  local
  real t , temp1


  xlong ( 0 ) := atan2 ( x ( 0 ) , x ( 1 ) )
  t := sqrt ( x ( 0 ) * x ( 0 ) + x ( 1 ) * x ( 1 ) )
  print t


  if ( t <>0 )
    temp1 := x ( 2 ) / t
    xlat ( 0 ) := atan ( temp1 )


  else ; vector sent was solely in z-axis direction, xlat := pi/2 or -pi/2
    print x ( 2 )
    xlat ( 0 ) := 1.5707963 / x ( 2 )


  endif
end


--
Eric Korpela
korpela@ssl.berkeley.edu
<a href="http://cs.indiana.edu/finger/mofo.ssl.berkeley.edu/korpela/w">Click here for more info.</a>
--

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