before D there was d

[Joakim via Digitalmars-d]

On Wednesday, 9 July 2014 at 13:18:00 UTC, jim schmit wrote:
> i recently sent this email to andrei.  he encouraged me to post 
> it in this forum.  here it is:
>
> hi andrei
>
> a colleague  recently pointed me to the wired article about you 
> & your D computer language.  thought you might be interested an 
> earlier attempt to produce a new & better computer language 
> that we called d (lower case).  fear not, i am an engineer, not 
> a lawyer, & do not sue people.
>
> my name is jim schmit.  i am a retired engineer / professor / 
> entrepreneur / international business man / corporate 
> executive.  I wrote my 1st program over 50 years ago.  i worked 
> for IBM as a systems engineer on the first OS on big iron. 
>  disillusioned with the consequences of complexity in computer 
> design (i am a pathological minimalist), i dropped out to 
> become a computer science professor & "do my own thing".  i was 
> extremely active at the birth of the microcomputer. in the mid 
> 70's i created a programming system for small cheap control 
> computers based on a stack architecture pseudo machine.  it was 
> tiny intended to fit entirely in a 2K byte eprom.  the run time 
> system consisted of a set of “base” functions that fit in less 
> than 1/2 K bytes of memory.  there was no interpreter, the code 
> was threaded.  the application fit in the other 1 1/2K.  the 
> functions used byte codes & used less than 1/3 the space of 
> well written machine language and ran at 1/2 the speed of 
> machine code.  net results…3x the functionality in the same rom 
> while far easier to write & debug code.  i called it omega
>
> before i could commercialize my system, i was distracted.
> i was commissioned to design & build what became known as 
> CompuTrac, the first microcomputer based technical analytic 
> system for trading the commodities markets.  it became an 
> instant hit & we soon found ourselves at the forefront of real 
> time trading systems.  we developed initially for the apple II 
> & later the PC.
>
> by the late 70’s we were searching for a new hardware platform 
> & disappointed in the options available decided to “roll our 
> own”.  we revisited omega as the basis for a real time graphic 
> workstation.  a former customer, turned competitor, named his 
> product omega, so we renamed the language d (after c).  with 2 
> former student assistants, paul johnstone & ana maria roa, we 
> started delta digital designs “strong designs & innovative 
> coffee”.
>
> we introduced our delta computer with d software in late ’83.  
> the software extended into the new windowed environment but 
> remained small & quick.  Our first product was called 
> TradePlan.  it was a real time vector spreadsheet with 
> constantly changing graphic output.  it could monitor 3 real 
> time ticker feeds of exchange trading data, maintain a local 
> data base of time series prices, feed 4 spreadsheets that were 
> fully user programable to calculate technical indicators & 
> create a trading system with alarms of opportunity & display 
> all on constantly updating charts.  the d machine run time 
> system containing multitasking scheduler, real time i/o 
> handlers, a complete graphic windowing capability ran in under 
> 8K of code.  The trade plan app code was under 24K.  running on 
> a 6809 processor, it was highly user responsive & could keep up 
> with the workload.
>
> it became famous in it’s small world of finance.  In 1985 both 
> CompuTrac & Delta Digital Designs was bought by Dow Jones / 
> Telerate.
>
> at dow, our products were renamed, extended & added to.  we did 
> another product called Matrix that was a user programmable 
> financial market monitor / consolidator that proved very 
> popular.
>  In the late 80’s our products generated just under $1B revenue 
> for DJ.
>
> Matrix used the 3rd iteration of the d language, rebuilt to be 
> fully object oriented.
>
> I retired in 1992 but my team continued the work for dow & a 
> series of other owners until 2003.
>
> if any of this is of any interest to you, please let me know.
>
> regards

Cool story, bro.