5 ms·

Someone who is quite well-known, but maybe doesn't get all the credit they really deserve, is Sophie Wilson. Not only did she design the ARM instruction set, bu

Someone who is quite well-known, but maybe doesn't get all the credit they really deserve, is Sophie Wilson. Not only did she design the ARM instruction set, but before that she spent fifteen years working on BBC BASIC, the language that so many of us in the UK first learnt to program in. Not sure I would have had a career in the tech sector without her.

klelatti 4y ago
Agreed on the sentiment but 'fifteen years' on BBC Basic can't be right. More like a couple of years. Great presentation from Sophie here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lOnpQgn-9s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lOnpQgn-9s
- ry4nolson 4y ago
  According to wikipedia: >She subsequently joined Acorn Computers and was instrumental in designing the BBC Micro, including the BBC BASIC programming language whose development she led for the next 15 years.
  - klelatti 4y ago
    Maybe, but not before she designed the Arm instruction set which is what the parent comment says (possibly I'm being pedantic but it does make a mess of the whole chronology).
    - gnfargbl 4y ago
      You're correct, I got the chronology wrong. From a more careful reading of Wikipedia it looks like ~2 yrs writing most of BBC BASIC, then designing the ARM instruction set, whilst at the same time maintaining BASIC (for another 15 years). Thinking about all this made me remember https://archive.org/details/arm-archimedes-assembly-language-the-complete-programming-course-se-covers-risc-os/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/arm-archimedes-assembly-language..., which as I recall was a pretty decent introduction to how microprocessors work (of the RISC variety, anyway).
      - klelatti 4y ago
        Thanks. I feel really bad about my pedantry now! I didn’t know that she’d carried on maintaining BBC Basic for so long after the BBC Micro era. Funnily enough I downloaded that ARM assembly language book last week in the course of writing up a couple of blog posts on RISC. (Shameless plug: first one on the IBM 801 should be our over the weekend - link in my bio if of interest.)
throwarm 4y ago
- inopinatus 4y ago
  Incorrect. Names are a reference, not a value.

klelatti 4y ago

Agreed on the sentiment but 'fifteen years' on BBC Basic can't be right. More like a couple of years. Great presentation from Sophie here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lOnpQgn-9s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lOnpQgn-9s

ry4nolson 4y ago
According to wikipedia: >She subsequently joined Acorn Computers and was instrumental in designing the BBC Micro, including the BBC BASIC programming language whose development she led for the next 15 years.
- klelatti 4y ago
  Maybe, but not before she designed the Arm instruction set which is what the parent comment says (possibly I'm being pedantic but it does make a mess of the whole chronology).
  - gnfargbl 4y ago
    You're correct, I got the chronology wrong. From a more careful reading of Wikipedia it looks like ~2 yrs writing most of BBC BASIC, then designing the ARM instruction set, whilst at the same time maintaining BASIC (for another 15 years). Thinking about all this made me remember https://archive.org/details/arm-archimedes-assembly-language-the-complete-programming-course-se-covers-risc-os/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/arm-archimedes-assembly-language..., which as I recall was a pretty decent introduction to how microprocessors work (of the RISC variety, anyway).
    - klelatti 4y ago
      Thanks. I feel really bad about my pedantry now! I didn’t know that she’d carried on maintaining BBC Basic for so long after the BBC Micro era. Funnily enough I downloaded that ARM assembly language book last week in the course of writing up a couple of blog posts on RISC. (Shameless plug: first one on the IBM 801 should be our over the weekend - link in my bio if of interest.)

throwarm 4y ago

inopinatus 4y ago
Incorrect. Names are a reference, not a value.