[Info-vax] compile for VAX 8650 system

[IanN]

On Tuesday, June 7, 2016 at 12:45:37 PM UTC-6, Stephen Hoffman wrote:
> 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

Thanks for the reply Stephen. The OS running on the current system is VAXELN, do you think OpenVMS will still work?