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UCSD Pascal: the SofTech Microsystems (SMS) Era

UCSD Pascal: the SofTech Microsystems (SMS) Era. Mark Overgaard. Caveats. No attempt to review detailed history Focus on a few high level observations about that “era” One widely shared perception… “We missed the brass ring.” Many widely divergent…

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UCSD Pascal: the SofTech Microsystems (SMS) Era

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  1. UCSD Pascal: the SofTech Microsystems (SMS) Era Mark Overgaard

  2. Caveats • No attempt to review detailed history • Focus on a few high level observations about that “era” • One widely shared perception… • “We missed the brass ring.” • Many widely divergent… • Prescriptions for what should have been done • Predictions of the corresponding results • My attitude: celebrate the good things; don’t sweat the rest

  3. Accomplishments • A range of professionally productized, supported and marketed offerings based on the foundation delivered by UCSD • “UCSD p-System” as the umbrella product family • FORTRAN-77 and BASIC compilers, assemblers… • Among the serious OEM commitments: • TI: TI-99 personal computer • IBM: DisplayWriter word-processing line • “IBM PC Apprentice”: special education packages • DEC: Rainbow PC

  4. Accomplishments (Cont.) • A mini-industry of supporting products such as books* • UCSD p-System Personal Computing: Overgaard and Stringfellow • UCSD Pascal Handbook: Clark and Koehler • Advanced UCSD Pascal Programming Techniques: Willner and Demchak *In addition to the programming text books from Ken Bowles and others

  5. Accomplishments (Cont.) • Further evolution of UCSD Pascal technology; continued focus on portability as major differentiator • Example 1: “Universal Media”: p-code-based hardware-agnostic application delivery format • Physically based on 5 ¼” diskettes • Directly anticipated Java’s “Write Once Run Anywhere” (“WORA”?) • Example 2: “Liaison”: use-counted local networking layer; obvious benefits from application portability here, also

  6. Bottom Lines • As David Letterman and Paul Schaffer would conclude: “It was definitely something.” • On the other hand, clearly SMS did not survive • Technical and marketing factors are both involved

  7. Marketing: Was “UCSD p-System” the right name? • Portia Isaacson didn’t think so • Clearly many other marketing/business-related factors could be considered… • Royalty levels • Choices of market focus • Choices of concrete strategy on IBM PC platform, specifically

  8. Technical: Maybe it was too early for “WORA”? • Assertion: only in the last 10 years or so has cost-effective compute horsepower (including RAM) enabled acceptable Write Once Run Anywhere • Various mixes of h/w acceleration, just-in-time compilation and other techniques help • In the 1980’s at least, the value proposition didn’t compute • My experience on customer priorities: • Priority #1: acceptable performance on their platform(s) of choice • Priority #2 (well behind): having a wide choice of platforms or making it easy for application vendors to cover lots of platforms with one distribution

  9. Potential Scenarios for UCSD Pascal Still Active in 2004 • Continue on campus…all open source (the “BSD Model”) • SofTech Microsystems makes different focus/business model choices, e.g. • Understand and seize the IBM PC opportunity with a radically different approach • Find a way to more effectively combine with the Apple Pascal momentum • Choose to focus entirely on educational uses

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