[Info-vax] compile for VAX 8650 system

[johnwallace4 at yahoo.co.uk]

On Tuesday, 7 June 2016 21:12:51 UTC+1, IanN  wrote:
> On Tuesday, June 7, 2016 at 2:00:24 PM UTC-6, Bob Gezelter wrote:
> > On Tuesday, June 7, 2016 at 2:20:47 PM UTC-4, imnik... at gmail.com wrote:
> > > 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.
> > 
> > imnik,
> > 
> > As has been said, any reasonable real or emulated VAX environment should suffice to run OpenVMS compiles. The devil will be in getting the details correct.
> > 
> > As has been suggested, a more detailed review of the issues would lead to clarity. If the appropriate expertise is not available in-house, getting outside help would also be a sound course of action (Disclosure: We provide consulting services.).
> > 
> > - Bob Gezelter, http://www.rlgsc.com
> 
> Thank you everyone for all of the replies. I do not have answers to many of your questions, and I have realized that I need to be a bit more well versed in this subject before I can really give you guys the information you need to be of help. I will look more into getting an emulator running as it seems that is a universal piece of advice common to all of you. I feel like I have a much better idea of how to proceed than I did before I made this post.

Stop thinking about emulators and start factfinding, understanding
what hardware and software fits where in this picture. Emulators for
the VMS host are tried tested and proven, but something in this 
picture as currently described sounds almost infinitely improbable.

The VAXELN 4.6 SPD (May 1996) lists the VAX 8650 as NOT SUPPORTED
as a VAXELN target, along with lots of other mid and high end 
systems. And that may also mean "doesn't work".

On the other hand, pretty much any decent VAX/VMS host will work as a VAXELN
development host, including 8650s.
http://www.compaq.com/info/SP2802/SP2802PF.PDF

I would be very surprised if the 8650 had been a supported VAXELN
target in a VAXELN version prior to 4.6, and then later retired. 

In principle someone with sufficient knowledge of VAXELN internals
and of 8650-specific characteristics could write their own Hardware
Abstraction Layer to allow an 8650 to be a VAXELN target environment.
I would be very surprised if anyone had actually done that.

Sometimes I am very surprised.

Clear descriptions always welcome.