[Info-vax] Roadmap

[John Reagan]

On Tuesday, January 1, 2019 at 8:26:51 PM UTC-5, Richard Maher wrote:
> On 2/01/2019 1:05 am, John Reagan wrote:
> > I'll stop short of offering Snapchat of me typing in my cubicle.
> > 
> > Here's a 'blog' entry for you New Year's enjoyment.
> > 
> > I've been working on the build of the math RTL.  It uses lots of C
> > macros to allow the code to be portable (DPML stands for Digital
> > Portable Math Library after all).  On Alpha, the C macros use Alpha
> > instruction builtins.  On Itanium, the macros use standard C code but
> > lots of C routines have been replaced with Itanium assemble.  For
> > x86, I need to pick pieces from both flavors.  I describe it as
> > Mister Potato Head.  Im making header changes as well as build file
> > changes.  The core algorithms are exactly the same ones on Alpha.
> > Should take just another day or so to get a complete DPML$SHR.EXE
> > 
> 
> Cool!
> 
> And you added that new/optional parameter to math$random right?

I'm not falling for that again...  The last time I suggested such a thing, I got schooled in PRNGs.

Seriously, we've been talking about PRNGs, entropy pools, OpenSSL, etc.  Having access to the underlying x86 instructions (either as C builtins, new MATH$ entry points, enhanced MATH$ entry points, etc.) will be a part of that.