[Info-vax] VMS port to x86

[Phillip Helbig---undress to reply]

In article
<75540c5c-cb05-4367-8936-a605e433c434 at h10g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>,
Neil Rieck <n.rieck at sympatico.ca> writes: 

> Over the years we've watched companies like AMD reverse engineer the
> x86 instruction set to produce a functionally similar x86 chip.
> Likewise, companies like Compaq reverse engineered the PC (and BIOS)
> to produce a functionally similar computer. 

OK.

> In the past, big companies
> charged big bucks for C compilers yet today every C programming course
> instructs people to only use open-source compilers like GNU-C.

Several reasons for the change.  First, open-source stuff now exists 
in "reasonable" quality.  Cheap internet has made it possible to have 
such projects.  Second, hardware has become cheap and operating systems 
as well, led to some extent by "Wintel" stuff since one helped sell the 
other and high-volume low-margin was profitable.  So, paying, say, 2000 
for a compiler is a lot of money.  Back when the hardware cost several 
tens of thousands, the extra money for compilers was, seen as a fraction 
of the total cost, small.

> So why do people here always throw out BLISS as the reason why porting
> VMS to x86 is not possible? After all, its only software. Software
> patents have always been dubious but if there is a copyright on BLISS
> then why not just reverse engineer it in C?

Reverse-engineered might not be very efficient.