[sbzodnsbd]

What I wish the Russian speaking HN readers would provide some history or documentation on is:

- Setun, a ternary (as opposed to binary) computer

- DSSP, a Forth like language that users seem to gush about in the same manner Lispers gush about LISP.

Info/history on both those systems are increadibly difficult to obtain in English!

[yznovyak]

Is there anything particular you would like to know? I've heard a little about Setun from my parents, but nothing too exciting, I can ask around if you're interested.

For a little context: my mother studied cybernetics and father studied electrical engineering in USSR in 70s. They still have their college textbooks lying around, so I can try to dig something up for you from that era. But keep in mind, even in 70s it was obvious that USSR was decades behind USA. Heck, my first algorithm textbook was my parents' 2nd edition of Knuth's TAOCP (interestingly, my parents combined have 1 copy of 1st volume, 0 copies of 2nd volume, and 2 copies of 3rd volume).

[sbzodnsbd]

DSSP, what’s so special about it? I sense LISPers and Forthers sense of “enlightenment” (which I have not obtained). But what is so special about DSSP that it’s considered a generalization of Forth?

Setun:

just about everything! I read it failed lately because bureaucrats stymied engineer’s creativity to do things the “Western” way (it seems this slowed the Soviet’s bomb since their scientists figures a better way to do something)

How were logic gates defined ? (Ie what type of ternary logic was used)

What were the voltage levels to represent the states?

What were the performance specs?

What did it do well? What did it do poorly?

Can it be re-implemented in CMOS?

[kelvich]

After a quick search I found http://trinary.ru website. It has:

Setun emulator, quick start and manual: http://trinary.ru/projects/setunws/

DSSP doc: http://trinary.ru/kb/d62d8074-50eb-422e-b571-fe2a9ab80584

There is even pdf with list of all Setun machines produced.

Google Translate should be enough to get through presented materials.

[codedokode]

I wanted to note that language's name in Russian (РАЯ, RAYA) is most likely a play on words. It is an abbreviation of phrase "Extensible Adaptive Language" and at the same time it is a female name. And Google Translate mistakenly translates is as "paradise", so one should read this header:

> Developed adaptive language PARADISE dialogue programming system PRSP

as "Extensible adaptive language RAYA for Dialogue (Interactive) Programming System (DSSP)". I think "Dialogue" here means something like REPL, where one can input commands and expressions and see the result.

I looked through Google Translate copy of the article about RAYA and DSSP - it is somewhat readable. Here are some words that machine translation gets wrong:

- PRSP, PSP, DPF -> incorrect translation for DSSP (Dialogue (Interactive) System for Structured Programming)

- paradise, heaven -> RAYA

- Developed adaptive language -> Extensible Adaptive Language

- "is known as descending programming" -> "is known as a waterfall model"

- "or as letters of the I / O alphabet" -> probably means "as letters for Input/Output of text"

- entered into -> introduced, added

- "Data types and their associated constraints and checks can be entered into problem-oriented language extensions." -> "can be introduced (added) by ... extensions"

- team -> command

- vertex -> top (of the stack)

- sub-top, sub-row, sub-vertex, sub-bottom, bottom, sub-bush, subspace, subshift -> second value from the top of the stack (I am surprised how many ways Google has to translate the same word)

- "assignment to her team! X value of the last (top) item" -> "assignment a top value from the stack to it using command !X"

- "PRSP processor", "PSP processor" -> DSSP processor

- Keyboard numbers -> Numbers, typed at keyboard

- "Signal the end of the input and the command processor" -> Signal of the end of input and the command to processor ...

- binary additional code -> two's complement code

- "The byte output command to the terminal issues a letter on the screen..." -> "TOB", the command for byte output ...

- "present a modifiable factor of the variable K"-> represent a modifiable factor with a variable K

- The PRSP processor distinguishes words from the first seven letters, identifying them by polite comparison -> The DSSP processor uses only first seven characters of the word, identifying words with letter-by-letter comparison

- monologue -> "monoword", single-word command

- verbose commands -> multiword commands

- pre-team -> special command prefix, which authors call "pre-prefix", like "BYTE" before "VAR"

- The remainder is always divisible. -> The remainder has the sign of divisible

- subloviera, sublovier, subcouples, subloader, sublorer -> sub-dictionary (don't know where Google took those words, I doubt they exist)

I hope it helps to understand the text.

[sbzodnsbd]

Guys, thanks for all the refrences!

[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

I'll second this.