[Info-vax] compile for VAX 8650 system

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2016-06-07 18:20:45 +0000, imniklason at gmail.com said:

> The company I work for currently has a contract to support code running 
> on a VAX 8650 system, we need to find some way to compile Ada, c, and 
> assembly (not sure exactly which versions, can find out if necessary) 
> for the VAX 8650 system. We have looked into emulation, acquiring our 
> own VAX 8650 system, and using a cross compiler, but so far we have not 
> had any luck with any of these approaches. I am writing this to see if 
> any of you fine folks have any suggestions as to how we might proceed.

Cross-compilers and shipping ancient and ginormous VAX boxes around the 
planet is not how this sort of thing is generally accomplished.

OpenVMS VAX application binaries are not tied to a specific hardware 
implementation.    They do need to be on the same or an older release 
for best results, but it can also be possible — with care, and some 
testing — to back-build application binaries, though that's officially 
unsupported.

Here, you'll want to license HPE OpenVMS VAX on and boot and use simh 
or one of the commercial VAX emulators — preferably running the same 
OpenVMS VAX version and patches as the target boxes — and install the 
compilers and licenses and source code on the emulator, and build your 
binaries and kits on the emulator, transfer the results to the 
production server, and be done with it.

Related:
http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/70

I know that there are (were?) folks working at the organization that 
you're affiliated with that know how to do this and that were very 
familiar with OpenVMS, so either ask around and get some internal help, 
or work with your management and get some external technical help from 
some folks that know about OpenVMS.

Barring unique embedded hardware, replacing the whole VAX with a VAX 
emulator is often feasible — most or all of the available VAX emulators 
will be faster than any available VAX, too.





-- 
Pure Personal Opinion | HoffmanLabs LLC