Editing IBM PALM processor (section)

== Name and Acronym Expansion ==

Two acronym expansions are in circulation in IBM-attributed sources, and they are not equivalent:

* '''"Put All Logic in Microcode"''' — used by Paul J. Friedl in the November 1983 PC Magazine SCAMP retrospective (Friedl was the SCAMP project lead and an IBM insider), and by hands-on owners citing the IBM 5100 Maintenance Information Manual SY31-0405.
* '''"Program All Logic in Microcode"''' — used in the Roberson 1976 IEEE Proceedings paper (the formal external IEEE publication on the 5100) and consequently by Wikipedia.

Both forms appear in IBM-originated documentation. The 5100 development team in Boca Raton appears to have used "Put"; the formal IEEE paper used "Program". This page records both rather than picking one.<ref>Friedl, P. J. "SCAMP: The Missing Link In The PC's Past?" PC Magazine 2(6): 190–197, November 1983.</ref><ref>Roberson, D. A. "A Microprocessor-based portable computer: The IBM 5100." Proceedings of the IEEE 64(6): 994–999, June 1976.</ref>

=== First Public IBM Use of the Term "PALM" ===

The earliest publicly accessible IBM document using the term "PALM" is the '''GENASM PALM''' manual by H. J. Myers (1977, IBM Internal Use Only). GENASM was IBM's macro-assembler generator for the PALM target machine; "PALM" in the title refers to file index 6 on the GENASM distribution tape (the PALM target-machine definition file).<ref>Myers, H. J., ''GENASM PALM'' (IBM Internal Use Only, 1977). Mirror at voidstar.blog GitHub `voidstar78/IBM_5100_DOCS/PDFs_5100/AssemblerGenerator.pdf`.</ref>

'''No public-facing IBM manual from the 5100 / 5110 / 5120 product line uses the term "PALM"''' — not the 5100 Maintenance Information Manual (SY31-0405), not the 5110 MIM (SY31-0550), not the 5120 Computing System Logic Manual (SY34-0193), and not the user-language reference manuals. IBM's customer-facing terminology is always "the controller" (the card in slot G2 on the 5100 / J2 on the 5110). The word "PALM" was internal-only until the late-1980s / 1990s, when it leaked into the IBM Archives and the Roberson IEEE-Proceedings paper retrospectively associated it with the controller architecture.