[Info-vax] VAX Macro to C conversion

[Bill Gunshannon]

On 7/12/19 12:36 PM, Aron Insinga wrote:
> On Tuesday, July 9, 2019 at 8:18:14 PM UTC-4, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>> On 7/9/19 3:08 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>> On 2019-07-08, Dave Froble wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Macro-32 is an assembler on the VAX.  On Alpha, itanic, and x86 is is a
>>>> compiled language, and not anything you'd want to use on the non-VAX
>>>> systems.  Just ask John.  It exists strictly for existing code.
>>>>
>>>
>>> It's nothing to do with whether it's an assembler or a compiler.
>>
>> Both are merely semantics.  Both are programs that take human
>> readable input and generate machine runable object code.
>>
>>>
>>> It's to do with the fact that assembly language is so low level
>>> and error prone even when compared to C.
>>
>> The current MACRO-32 compiler can not be low level by any stretch
>> of the imagination. I can not believe any VAX instruction would
>> map directly and with the same semantics with the instruction set
>> of the Alpha or the IA64.  The same would be true for the x86-64.
> 
> 
> A single VAX instruction can be compiled into a _sequence_ of instructions for another machine.  A single VAX MACRO ADDL3 instruction might become 4 instructions for a RISC machine: load, load, add, and store.  Of course the sequence gets more complicated depending on the instruction, the addressing modes, etc.
> 

Of course it can.  Just like a "+" or "MOVE" in COBOL or
an "IF" in Fortran.  And the current MACRO-32 compiler is
no more a low level language than any of the other examples.




bill