[Info-vax] VSI plans to offer an IA64 to X86 binary translator similar to AEST?

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2019-03-19 17:49:26 +0000, Rod Regier said:

> We have internally coded build procedures for source programs that 
> would have to be bootstrapped before we could compile from scratch from 
> the source on a new OpenVMS architecture.
> ...
> We don't have separately coded procedures to build our build tools only 
> using OS components and compilers.

Gonna need that tool build bootstrap now.  Good practice for a breach 
recovery, that. Also ensures the tools are the current versions.  And 
that the tool source code hasn't gone missing.  As can happen.

There are cases when intermediate build products from previous tools 
are required for a tool build.  That gets a little tricky, and 
(usually) involves hauling over intermediate build products from 
OpenVMS I64 build.

Or drop back to Alpha and translate forward from there, as has been discussed.

The OpenVMS Alpha translation tools will probably only become available 
after the production OpenVMS x86-64 and major layered products are 
available.

But this is all two or three years into the future, too.  A whole lot 
can happen between now and the production availability of OpenVMS 
x86-64, and the availability of dependencies if any.

So... call back in ~2021 or so...  Maybe allocate time, staff and/or 
funding for the tool bootstrap in the interim.  Allocate it to the 
"recovery from badness" budget.


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