Interview questions for Bill Wilkinson?

[Savetz]

I have an interview scheduled for the podcast with Bill Wilkinson, co-founder of Optimized Systems Software. I'm trying something new: soliciting interview question ideas here. If you have a burning question about OSS, post it here and I'll try to ask Bill. The interview is tentatively scheduled for Sept. 23.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimized_Systems_Software

[+DrVenkman]

Ohboyohboyohboyohboy! I loved OSS products back in the day! Their language tools were the best of their day.

 

Here's one - more of a general discussion topic than a specific question. How did they come up with the various bank schemes used in their cartridges, and why were there more than one?

[tschak909]

Was the insistence on using a linked sector filesystem, Atari's? Why oh why?

Why was OS/A+ 4.1 dropped for DOS XL?

-Thom

[Rybags]

It'd be interesting to get the story on how Atari went live with the unfinished Basic instead of waiting that little extra while for the nasty bugs to get ironed out.

 

The Dos story too. Dos itself has flexibility in that you can change # of drives/buffers supported to optimize memory usage but the format itself didn't provide much flexibility of future expansion, ie more bytes/sector, more sectors/sides.

 

The Action story - inspiration etc.

 

The 7800 projects.

 

The EASMD story.

[tschak909]

I can tell ya Action!

 

Clinton Parker formed ACS, to commercialize his work on Micro-SPL (go look for Uni of Rochester papers, circa 1979), he found that uSPL worked really well on the 6502's limited stack space, ported it to the Atari 8-bit, and needed a publisher. In comes OSS.

 

-Thom

[Rybags]

Was the insistence on using a linked sector filesystem, Atari's? Why oh why?

 

-Thom

 

I'd say memory footprint. With a FAT12 system that's a little over 1K to hold a FAT copy in RAM. Alternative to that would be caching part of it but you'd still get the annoyance of having to seek back to read it during file accesses. Bigger clusters = smaller FAT but then even more memory loss due to bigger buffers needed.

[thorfdbg]

 

I'd say memory footprint. With a FAT12 system that's a little over 1K to hold a FAT copy in RAM. Alternative to that would be caching part of it but you'd still get the annoyance of having to seek back to read it during file accesses. Bigger clusters = smaller FAT but then even more memory loss due to bigger buffers needed.

 

Atari actually tried with a FAT-type file system. Was not exactly a success, the DOS 3. The problem here is that the blocks became too big. The Dos 1 (and later Dos 2) file system was good enough for everyday usage, the only thing that did not work well was random access, and that was rarely needed.

[tschak909]

OS/A+ 4.1 also used a bitmapped filesystem. (irony, OS/A+ 4.1's FMS was literally a direct port of what OSS did for Apple's original DOS that ran atop RWTS)

 

-Thom

[+Allan]

Please ask him about the Atari 7800 Basic that OSS did for Atari but was never published.

 

Allan

 

[+Ripdubski]

What was his involvment in Atari DOS 3? I read somewhere he was involved but not able to find the reference again.

[kenjennings]

"You Rock!!!" wait, that's not a question.

 

"We're Not Worthy!!!", wait, that's also not a question.

 

Was there any plan to get regular integer variables into Atari BASIC instead of FP for everything? And not even in BASIC XL???

[LoTonah]

Ask him if he knew the Atari ST hard drive he sold me 20+ years ago was still full of work files and programs. It was my first exposure to DevPak.

 

Good thing I'm an honest person. And no, that drive died back in the 90's.

 

Actually, I don't really have a worthy question. Just admiration; Bill is one of my programming heroes and it is always a pleasure when our paths cross.

[drac030]

Ask him about ... no, ask him _for_ DOS XE file system specs. Or for DOS XE source code release, if he still has it.

[ClausB]

Please ask him why they chose BCD floating point for Atari BASIC instead of binary. The usual reason is that 10*0.1 is not exactly 1 in binary, but was there another reason?

 

Also, what did he think of Microsoft's 6502 BASIC implementation?

 

[fibrewire]

Was the insistence on using a linked sector filesystem, Atari's? Why oh why?

 

Why was OS/A+ 4.1 dropped for DOS XL?

 

-Thom

 

Why was OS/A+ dropped at all? Version 4 is my personal favorite, and had potential in its multiple device support via the CIO dispatcher. It also ran on both the Apple II and the Atari!

[sup8pdct]

I too would like the specs of dos XE and how to get it working with 16meg drive size. I dissembled it and gave it a go but failed.

 

James

[tschak909]

why the hell would anyone want to use DOS XE? It's awkward as hell on all counts.

 

-Thom

[hatchcliff]

Firstly, please convey my thanks along with others to Bill for contributing so much to a fun era.

I would love to hear about the history of any of the OSS products - particularly Action, which I thought was a real gem.

My question is: Who designed Action?

- but I think I already found the answer here:

Clinton Parker formed ACS, to commercialize his work on Micro-SPL (go look for Uni of Rochester papers, circa 1979)

Google turned up two names for me: Clinton W Parker and Henry G Baker from the University of Rochester.

Perhaps you could put the question to Bill anyway. Did OSS have to modify the design much to turn Micro SPL into Action? Whoever did the work, the end result is a credit to them. I think they made some very good decisions about which features to include and which to leave out to build a practical language for the 8 bit Atari.

---

Also: Was Action a commercial success?

I hope it was, but the reason I ask is that I was the only member of my computer clubs in the 1980's who had an Action cartridge. I couldn't share my work with my fellow enthusiasts because I didn't have the runtime library and couldn't make distributable programs. I have often wondered if other Action programmers were similarly isolated, and if this great language failed to catch on partly for this reason.

I don't recall ever seeing the runtime library advertised for sale here in the UK (but maybe I just didn't buy the right magazines). Apart from one reference to it in the manual, I knew nothing about it until recent discussions on AtariAge.

Best Regards

Cliff

Edited September 13, 2014 by cliffh

[+slx]

+1 on the integers for BASIC XL/XE and was there ever a thought to use the superior editor of Action! for a renewed MAC/65 to get rid of the line numbers?

 

And thanks for great Software!

[FifthPlayer]

I couldn't think of any questions for Bill either, but I just wanted to add another vote of admiration for Bill as one of my heroes.

 

As a teenager, Bill's "INSIGHT: Atari" columns in COMPUTE! magazine were my first education into operating systems and systems software, and definitely contributed towards my future career as a software engineer.

 

Okay, I thought of one - Why didn't OSS expand and diversify to more platforms. They definitely did some stuff for Apple, and I'm learning for Atari ST. But why not the C64, a platform with (in my view) absolutely terrible system software? ACTION!, for instance, might have been very well-received by the C64 community.

[high voltage]

Just tell him 'thanks' for The Writer's Tool, such an excellent WP.

[ricortes]

At one time Bill said it was a Mac product that sunk OSS. Something like a Pascal by some German programmers.

 

I'm sure there were a lot of reasons OSS went down i.e. built in BASIC on the XL line made buying a language a moot point. Everything went down other then MS, Apple, and a few others like Oracle.

 

The PD runtime for Action! came out fairly quickly. Of course you didn't need to use the runtime library to write programs, you just avoided using the canned code procedures.

 

IIRC, Bill's degree was in math from Berkeley. So far back in time I'm not even sure they offered a CS degree. I think in addition to his work on languages he did the FP routines in the 8 bit OS; the math wizard thing.

 

Much of what happened was due to the state of the art in the day. I think the Apple came with 16k and Atari was initially an 8k machine. In those days a tokenised BASIC was the way to go in terms of bang for your buck. Witness the 10 line BASIC contest. I just mention this because second guessing can be seen as confrontational. What was smart and appropriate then was conceived under a different set of rules. It's like asking a cowboy why he rode a horse.

 

For some reason Bill doesn't seem to get the love from other platforms like he does from Atari. I mean early Apple DOS and flavors of BASIC, even a C compiler. Ditto for ST languages PASCAL. I think he had the chance to distribute GFA BASIC but passed on it.

 

I'd like to see some non technical questions myself. How's his health, how does he like where he is living now compared to California<assuming he hasn't moved back>, are there people he missed.

 

There are some really goofy stories that he may not repeat. Ask him for the name of the guy who insisted on being paid in $50 bills and the reason why.

Edited September 13, 2014 by ricortes

[+DrVenkman]

For some reason Bill doesn't seem to get the love from other platforms like he does from Atari. I mean early Apple DOS and flavors of BASIC, even a C compiler. Ditto for ST languages PASCAL.

 

I used OSS Personal Pascal on my ST to write a number of programs to solve aerospace engineering/orbital mechanics problems as an undergrad in the late 80's. Worked great as I recall, and was a nice way to stretch this kid's mind out of the strictures of plain old 8-bit Atari BASIC and 6502 assembly language that I'd used for years prior.

[re-atari]

I'd like to see some non technical questions myself. How's his health, how does he like where he is living now compared to California<assuming he hasn't moved back>, are there people he missed.

I agree with Rick. IMHO the persons behind the stuff developed for the A8 matter way more than the things they actually developed.

 

People like Bill played an important role in the way the industry took shape in the early days. I always enjoyed reading his Compute! Inside Atari articles very much, especially when he made controversial remarks. I remember an article where he explained why the IBM PC is not a 16-bit but an 8-bit computer. That was not quite the predominant view back then. The chapters in (IIRC) Inside Atari DOS about how Atari Basic and Atari Dos were developed with the limited means available were great reading material as well.

 

re-atari

Edited September 14, 2014 by re-atari

[+DrVenkman]

I agree with Rick. IMHO the persons behind the stuff developed for the A8 matter way more than the things they actually developed.

 

 

That's very true; but at the same time, many folks don't open up very easily. I'm not gonna to tell Kevin how to conduct his interview; that said, I've interviewed literally thousands of people professionally, though not for broadcast purposes. They are often very open about non-personal things, especially their professional accomplishments. Once you establish rapport with discussion of those sorts of things, you can often get them to relax and discuss the other more intimate or personal things.

 

But honestly, some people have had disappointment in life, or tragedy, or health issues, or money problems ... If you want to get good info, you have to work your way into those topics gently and let the interview flow naturally in that direction. If you force it there before the subject of the interview wants to go there, they'll shut you out.

 

So yeah, I hope he's well personally and living a happy, comfortable life. But if he's not, or if he doesn't want to talk about those personal things, it wouldn't be a surprise to me.

Edited September 14, 2014 by DrVenkman