[Info-vax] The (now lost) future of Alpha.

[Bill Gunshannon]

On 08/05/2018 04:35 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 8/5/2018 9:38 AM, Craig A. Berry wrote:
>> On 8/4/18 1:19 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>> What system services do a compiler need?
>>>
>>> (besides what is available in standard C RTL)
>>
>> Things such as file I/O that are not in libc on most systems. However,
>> those systems tend to have C-friendly syscalls, so you still wouldn't
>> need assembler.
> 
> I am note sure that IBM mainframe got syscalls.
> 
> But there are something. There is the standard C RTL. And
> there are usually a pretty big chunk of extras. If it
> does not have native *nix syscalls then it usually have
> library emulating them.
> 
> I find it very difficult to imagine deciding to
> use assembler to be able to read source files
> and write either assembler code or object code.
> 

A quick look at a C compiler for z/OS, CMS, MVS and OS/390
shows support for open(), close(), read(), write() and even
fork().  It also has fopen(), fclose(), fread(), fwrite(),
fputs(). fgets() and many more.  It is interesting that the
description of fork() stastes that, like its unix equivalent,
the child gets independent copies of variables and descriptors.
The one thing that VMS could never seem to do.

bill