[Info-vax] Reimplementing VMS, was: Re: HP adds OpenVMS Mature Product Support beyond the end of Standard Support

[VAXman- at SendSpamHere.ORG]

In article <cad9a4d9-a50c-4477-a0d9-2b4888da8ec8 at googlegroups.com>, John Reagan <xyzzy1959 at gmail.com> writes:
>On Monday, February 3, 2014 2:45:33 PM UTC-5, johnwa... at yahoo.co.uk wrote:
>
>>=20
>> John Reagan, on the other hand, I do take as definitive. He also has
>> a couple of posts in that thread, about GEM on x86, and what it could
>> (and mostly could not) do.
>>=20
>
>I've been resisting jumping back in.  I only have so many blood pressure pi=
>lls left, but since John mentioned my name...
>
>To recap from various posts over the years:
>
>BLISS for x86-32.  A subset of BLISS & GEM that compiles the necessary BLIS=
>S, GEM, and Visual Fortran sources, to get the Visual Fortran product.  Als=
>o provided to Oracle in some fashion for their analysis/study/whatever (tal=
>k to them on how they actually used it).  GEM for x86-32 used only 32-bit r=
>egisters, used the Windows calling standard, used the Windows debug table f=
>ormat, used the Windows object file format.  Probably got most of the whole=
> BLISS language, but the GEM target only implemented just those code patter=
>ns used by BLISS and Fortran.  For example, none of the COBOL packed decima=
>l, Pascal VARYING OF CHAR, BASIC CLASS_D string support, etc. were done.  T=
>hose code patterns were empty and contained an "assert".
>
>Unless somebody cloned the CMS libraries without my knowledge, there has ne=
>ver been a Macro-32 compiler that would generate a single 8086/x86-32/whate=
>ver instruction.
>
>Any "study" or "analysis" would have been at a higher "what if" level to "m=
>ake a list of the areas that might be impacted by a port and what work woul=
>d need to be done".

I know John.  He spent many hours as a barstool philosopher providing me 
with one-on-one tutelage WRT the Itanium's instruction set.  If John says
that there's no "midnight oil" x86 VMS product/study/pie-in-the-sky/etc.,
I'd believe him -- even if he is a Pascal programmer! :P

-- 
VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker    VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)ORG

Well I speak to machines with the voice of humanity.