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From: brucec@orca.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.lang.st80
Subject: Rosetta Smalltalk (reposting)
Message-ID: <989@orca.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 8-Aug-84 12:14:31 EDT
Article-I.D.: orca.989
Posted: Wed Aug  8 12:14:31 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 10-Aug-84 02:14:44 EDT
Sender: brucec@orca.UUCP
Organization: Tektronix, Wilsonville OR
Lines: 36

[Reposted by request; the article-eater zapped me.]

>>  Rosetta Smalltalk was written by Scott K. Warren and Dennis Abbe of
>>  Rosetta, Inc., 5925 Kirby Drive, Houston, Tx 77005. They had a prototype
>>  Z80 version running in 1979, and later, under contract to Intel, worked
>>  on versions for newer microprocessors. I believe Intel paid for the new
>>  versions and never used them.

Intel did in fact market Rosetta Smalltalk on the iAPX 432 processor (the
432-100 board, which plugs into an Intel "blue box") as OPL (for Object
Programming Language).  This made some sense, since they had no other real
demos for the 432.  I had one of the beasts in my system when I worked at
Intel, and I still have the OPL manual.

OPL was a real dog for performance, largely because of a *really* bad
hardware architecture in the 432-100 board design.  The 432 was forced to go
onto the Multibus for every memory access, and the bus interface was screwed
up so that if you didn't modify the system, each access cost >100
microseconds (16 bits wide, in my system).  I have a feeling that, if Intel
had been serious about either Smalltalk or the 432, that we would be seeing
amazing things now, but as it is, they have effectively tubed both.

	C'est la vie ...
	C'est le guerre ...
	C'est what?

				Bruce Cohen
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