The TREE-META Translator Writing System

Reference and documented historical information is in the Wikipedia article on TREE-META.

The document I would most like to find is the tech report which I think was the documentation for the system.

The Tree-Meta Compiler-Compiler System: A Meta Compiler System for the Univac 1108 and the General Electric 645. Carr, C. Stephen; Luther, David A.; Erdmann, Sherian. 01 Mar 1969, 105 Pages, University of Utah Technical Report (March 1969) Available as ARPA Order No. 829.

http://www.dtic.mil/srch/doc?collection=t2&id=AD0855122

Of course I'd like to find any TREE-META related source (soft or hard copy) of any kind.

There is an article about The programming languages behind "the mother of all demos" at Lambda the Ultimate.

At one point I suspected that Harold Carr was related to C. S. Carr (they both went to U. of Utah CS), but that isn't the case. Harold did however dig up some information on Stephen Carr, which he has given permission to publish.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: TREEMETA
Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2008 09:41:08 -0700
From: Harold Carr <Harold.Carr@Sun.COM>
To: Jim White <jim@pagesmiths.com>
References: <48345989.10406@pagesmiths.com>

Hello Jim,

Here is what I have been able to find out about Steve.

Stephen Carr worked with Duane Call and in particular Alan Kay.

His name is C. Stephen Carr.

In the late 60s the UUCS deparment's key players were Dave Evans, Alan
Kay, Steve Carr and Bob Barton.  Then along came Ivan Sutherland, and
then Tom Stockham.  Alan and Steve were just that prominent as
students.  Steve had a great deal to do with the early formation of
the U of U CS Division of the EE Dept.

Steve was very "professional," even as a student.  He had a sort-of
following of several younger students who assisted him with
something-or-other and TreeMeta, but Alan Kay was the one off whom he
bounced most of his ideas.

Alan was developing his Flex machine ideas.

The two of them, Alan and Steve (with Steve being the chief organizer)
were the ones who talked Dave Evans into the A.B. Dick machine, and
into graduate students being allowed to take road trips (to places
like MIT, Stanford, the Algol-68 conference in Vancouver, BC, etc.)

The two of them formed a company called Creative X.  Dave Walton and
Duane Call, along with Alan Kay, worked on a Flex Machine
implementation during that summer at Memcore/Montek (a division of
LTV) in cooperation with an class-act engineer there by the name of Ed
Cheadle.

Duane worked on simulating the graphics engine, using sense switches
on a small IBM machine to implement some rubber-band drawing functions
so as to draw a picture of the Flex machine ON the Flex machine (you
know, on the same theme as simulating the 1108 on the 1108, writing
compiler compilers, etc.).

Steve Carr also did some work back then on providing graphics tools
for use by architects.

Steve had a wedding ceremony and reception at the Ft. Douglas country
club.  Steve didn't share much information about the non-student part
of his life, so the reception was a major happening.

Steve was working in the Bay area with some financial
institutions--not in the main stream computer science field.  Steve
has always been cordial, but seemingly very private.  Steve ran a
company called "Information Processing Technologies" and/or
"Innovative Product Technology" till around 2000.  Since then he has
done technology litigation work and currently has a small company
called "Technology Litigation Corporation."

Nobody I know of has copies of his TreeMeta papers.

Hope that helps,
Harold

Stephen Carr

Authored RFC 15 - Network Subsystem for Time Sharing Hosts