2,541 research outputs found
GIER: A Danish computer from 1961 with a role in the modern revolution of astronomy
A Danish computer, GIER, from 1961 played a vital role in the development of
a new method for astrometric measurement. This method, photon counting
astrometry, ultimately led to two satellites with a significant role in the
modern revolution of astronomy. A GIER was installed at the Hamburg Observatory
in 1964 where it was used to implement the entirely new method for the
measurement of stellar positions by means of a meridian circle, then the
fundamental instrument of astrometry. An expedition to Perth in Western
Australia with the instrument and the computer was a success. This method was
also implemented in space in the first ever astrometric satellite Hipparcos
launched by ESA in 1989. The Hipparcos results published in 1997 revolutionized
astrometry with an impact in all branches of astronomy from the solar system
and stellar structure to cosmic distances and the dynamics of the Milky Way. In
turn, the results paved the way for a successor, the one million times more
powerful Gaia astrometry satellite launched by ESA in 2013. Preparations for a
Gaia successor in twenty years are making progress.Comment: 19 pages,8 figures, Accepted for publication in Nuncius Hamburgensis,
Volume 2
On the basis for ELF - An Extensible Language Facility
Computer language for data processing and information retrieva
Several types of types in programming languages
Types are an important part of any modern programming language, but we often
forget that the concept of type we understand nowadays is not the same it was
perceived in the sixties. Moreover, we conflate the concept of "type" in
programming languages with the concept of the same name in mathematical logic,
an identification that is only the result of the convergence of two different
paths, which started apart with different aims. The paper will present several
remarks (some historical, some of more conceptual character) on the subject, as
a basis for a further investigation. The thesis we will argue is that there are
three different characters at play in programming languages, all of them now
called types: the technical concept used in language design to guide
implementation; the general abstraction mechanism used as a modelling tool; the
classifying tool inherited from mathematical logic. We will suggest three
possible dates ad quem for their presence in the programming language
literature, suggesting that the emergence of the concept of type in computer
science is relatively independent from the logical tradition, until the
Curry-Howard isomorphism will make an explicit bridge between them.Comment: History and Philosophy of Computing, HAPOC 2015. To appear in LNC
A Rational Deconstruction of Landin's SECD Machine with the J Operator
Landin's SECD machine was the first abstract machine for applicative
expressions, i.e., functional programs. Landin's J operator was the first
control operator for functional languages, and was specified by an extension of
the SECD machine. We present a family of evaluation functions corresponding to
this extension of the SECD machine, using a series of elementary
transformations (transformation into continu-ation-passing style (CPS) and
defunctionalization, chiefly) and their left inverses (transformation into
direct style and refunctionalization). To this end, we modernize the SECD
machine into a bisimilar one that operates in lockstep with the original one
but that (1) does not use a data stack and (2) uses the caller-save rather than
the callee-save convention for environments. We also identify that the dump
component of the SECD machine is managed in a callee-save way. The caller-save
counterpart of the modernized SECD machine precisely corresponds to Thielecke's
double-barrelled continuations and to Felleisen's encoding of J in terms of
call/cc. We then variously characterize the J operator in terms of CPS and in
terms of delimited-control operators in the CPS hierarchy. As a byproduct, we
also present several reduction semantics for applicative expressions with the J
operator, based on Curien's original calculus of explicit substitutions. These
reduction semantics mechanically correspond to the modernized versions of the
SECD machine and to the best of our knowledge, they provide the first syntactic
theories of applicative expressions with the J operator
Early Nordic compilers and autocodes
Abstract. The early development of compilers for high-level program-ming languages, and of so-called autocoding systems, is well documented at the international level but not as regards the Nordic countries. The goal of this paper is to provide a survey of compiler and autocode development in the Nordic countries in the early years, roughly 1953 to 1965, and to relate it to international developments. We also touch on some of the historical societal context
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