Lilith and Modula-2

Contents

Introduction
Documentation
Programs and Source Code
Related Links
Further Reading

Introduction

The programming language Modula-2 was authored by Professor Niklaus Wirth of the Institut fur Informatik of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in 1979. A joint software - hardware project, in conjunction with the language development produced the advanced programmers' workstation Lilith in 1980. Software developed for the Lilith computer included a compiler, operating system, text and graphic editors and other support software. 

Interest in the early Modula-2 compiler, shown recently on the comp.lang.modula2 newsgroup, prompted us to track down some early related documentation, programs and source code in our possession, and make them publicly available on the Internet. Professor Wirth was contacted and kindly gave us his permission to do this. 

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Documentation

• ETH Report Nr 40 - The Personal Computer Lilith. Apr 1981. N. Wirth  "The Yellow Report"
  ETH Report Nr 40 (PDF file 1.5 MB)
   
• The Modula-2 Handbook - A Guide for Modula-2 Users and Programmers. Modula Research Institute, November 1983
  The Modula-2 Handbook (PDF file 1.8 MB)

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Programs and Source Code

• The M2M-PC System - v1.35 for MS-DOS. Modula Research Institute. Feb 1984
  M2M-PC v1.35 for MS-DOS (Zip file 120 KB)

The Lilith executes M-code, a pseudo-code similar to the P-code of the Pascal compilers also designed by N. Wirth. The M2M-PC System is an M-code interpreter for the IBM-PC running DOS 2.0 developed by the Modula Research Institute allowing the Lilith Modula-2 compiler and its output to be executed on the IBM-PC. 

The system was originally designed to run on a system with two floppy disk drives but we have successfully run it under cmd.exe on a Windows XP system. Refer to the Modula-2 Handbook above for instructions on how to use the system.

• M2M Compiler Sources. Modula Research Institute. Oct 1983
  M2M Compiler Sources (Zip file 180 KB)

The first Modula-2 compiler was completed in 1979 and ran on the DEC PDP-11. This is the source code of the PC version of the second Modula-2 compiler. It generates M-code for the Lilith and can be compiled and run using the M2M-PC System. The following text document files are included with the sources:

• Overview of the Modula-2 Compiler M2M
• Files on Tape for M2M Compiler
• The M-code interpreter (Appendix 1 of the Yellow Report)
  
  This appendix includes a table of the M-Code instructions and the Modula-2 source of the M-Code intepreter providing a high-level definition of the Lilith computer's instruction set and architecture

Related Links

• Svend Erik Knudsen, Medos-2 A Modula-2 Oriented Operating System for the Personal Computer Lilith.  Dec 1983.
  Dissertation ETH No 7346. (PDF format 7.1 MB)

This dissertation is available for download directly from ETH. It expands on the detail of some sections included in the Lilith Report and the Modula-2 Handbook.

• ETHistory - Lilith Workstation

Further Reading

• N. Wirth, Programming in Modula-2, Springer-Verlag, 1982, ISBN 3-540-12206-0.
  
  This is the reference document for the original version of Modula-2.
   
• László Böszörményi, Jürg Gutknecht, Gustav Pomberger (Eds.): The School of Niklaus Wirth, "The Art of Simplicity". Morgan-Kaufmann 2000, ISBN 3-932588-85-1
  
  There are many references to Lilith and Modula-2 throughout this book, but chapters of particular interest are:
  • Medos in Retrospect
  • Lilith Meets the World of Business
  • The Chip Company that Made $100M with Modula-2

Other Links

• CFB Software - Component Pascal Examples
• CFB Software - Home