Storage B

Back when I was developing shiphandling simulator software, I ran into situations where it was necessary to convert decimal degrees to degrees, minutes, and seconds (for example, nautical types like to express latitude/longitude using degrees, minutes, and seconds while computers prefer decimal degrees).

Here's some C++ functions which handle the conversion between these two formats:

std::string DMS::DegreesMinutesSeconds(double ang,
                                       unsigned int num_dec_places = 2)
std::string DMS::DegreesMinutesSecondsLat(double ang,
                                          unsigned int num_dec_places = 2)
std::string DMS::DegreesMinutesSecondsLon(double ang,
                                          unsigned int num_dec_places = 2)

double DMS::DecimalDegrees(const std::string& dms)

These are inline functions defined in the header file, dms.h:

(via mit.edu)

Multics (Multiplexed Information and Computing Service) was a mainframe timesharing operating system that began at MIT as a research project in 1965. It was an important influence on operating system development.

…

In order to preserve the ideas and innovations that made Multics so important in the development of computer systems, Bull HN has provided the source code for the final Multics release, MR 12.5 of November 1992 to MIT. It is a generous contribution to computer science knowledge and is provided for academic purposes. Additionally, we intend this site to become a repository for many papers and documents that were created during the Multics development as a complement to the other Multics sites.

Check out: Multics Source and Listings.

I recently stumbled upon Google Trends. I though it might be interesting to compare the search volume for the first two computer languages I learned: Fortran vs. Algol

fortran    algol

The results are not too surprising, since Fortran is still widely used by scientists and engineers. Algol, which, according to The Retrocomputing Museum, is “the common ancestor of C, Pascal, Algol-68, Modula, Ada, and most other conventional languages that aren’t BASIC, FORTRAN, or COBOL,” isn’t used as much anymore.

(via email)

Derek’s Virtual Slide Rule Gallery (A gallery of clickable simulated slide rules)

I guess Alan Turing was right — you really can emulate any computer on any other computer.

I recently stumbled upon NASE A60, an open source Algol 60 interpreter.

Having learned a more “modern” Algol (on Burroughs computers in the early/mid 80’s), I think it’s kind of neat to revisit this language, which, according to The Retrocomputing Museum, is “the common ancestor of C, Pascal, Algol-68, Modula, Ada, and most other conventional languages that aren’t BASIC, FORTRAN, or COBOL.”