[Info-vax] VMS Software needs to port VAX DIBOL to OpenVMS X86 platform

[Doug Phillips]

On 12/15/2020 11:51 AM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 12/15/2020 12:02 PM, Stephen Hoffman wrote:
>> On 2020-12-14 19:08:16 +0000, ultradwc at gmail.com said:
>>
>>> So Synergex as of now refuses to port their OpenVMS version of DIBOL 
>>> to OpenVMS X86.
>>>
>>> This is a request for VMS software to port VAX DIBOL to the x86 
>>> OpenVMS environment.
>>>
>>> I have started a project using DIBOL and need to implement it on the 
>>> x86 platform.
> 
>> ...convince Synergex to port DIBOL/DBL, or convince somebody to port 
>> an existing DIBOL compiler or to write a new DIBOL compiler for you, 
>> or write one yourself. For folks writing a new DIBOL compiler, the 
>> back end will prolly be LLVM, that for either native code or (using 
>> emscripten) to WebAssembly for browser-based operations, or otherwise. 
>> And no, I'm not aware of an open-source DIBOL compiler.
> 
> Synergex may be convinced to do it.
> 
> Somebody creating a Dibol compiler from scratch seems unrealistic.
> 
>> ...translate the existing DIBOL code into C or into some other 
>> language, using the available d2c or dibol2c or other tooling, or 
>> home-grown tooling.
> 
>  > The referenced dibol2c and d2c tools are open-source. YMMV, etc.
> 
> In my opinion either Dibol was the wrong choice to begin with or
> C is the wrong choice to port to.
> 
> If it is traditional business code, then using C in 2020 does
> not make much sense in my opinion.
> 
>> ...port the DIBOL apps to another platform with a supported DIBOL 
>> compiler. This when continued use of the current platform and current 
>> compiler becomes untenable. This other platform may well co-exist as a 
>> guest with OpenVMS x86-64 in a virtual machine, too. Either long-term, 
>> or for the duration of the platform migration.
> 
> Synergex supports other platforms.
> 
> I have no idea if Synergex DBL code is portable between
> their supported platforms.
> 
> Arne

If you don't use OS-specific code, it is portable; compile, link & run. 
If a language routine exists in multiple OS versions, then the routine's 
internals handle the differences.

When we ported some code from old PDP-11 DIBOL to VAX and then VAX to 
Alpha/DBL it was compile, link & run. We adjusted a few things 
afterwards to take advantage of the OS differences and processor speed. 
We had code running on TSX+ so we were familiar with DBL. Going from 
there to Windows/*nix needed some tweaking because there were some DEC 
specifics in our code, but it was easy. Fortunately most of that code 
was in our subroutines so we could just make OS-specific versions of 
those routines & libraries. We did add some compile-time options to some 
routines so they could live on any platform.

Synergy/DBL is DIBOL standards compliant but it goes way beyond DIBOL. 
And, it really shouldn't be called DIBOL anymore unless it's actually DIBOL.