[Info-vax] Creating an open source version of VMS, was: Re: OpenVMS Hobbyist Notification

[Dave Froble]

On 3/11/2020 9:22 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2020-03-10, Dave Froble <davef at tsoft-inc.com> wrote:
>> On 3/10/2020 3:05 PM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>>
>>> Other things I would get rid of would include any support for Macro-32.
>>
>> Really off the wall, since Macro-32 is not part of the OS.
>
> Oh yes it most certainly is.
>
> The need to support Macro-32 as an application programming language is
> the reason why the various VMS APIs look the way they do.
>
> It's also one of the reasons why VMS needs mixed mode 32-bit/64-bit APIs
> in the same process instead of just having a flag that says the current
> process uses either 32-bit or 64-bit pointers and addressing by default.

Supporting what allows use of Macro-32 does not mean that the language 
is part of the OS.

>>>
>>> My point is that you can have a vastly improved design that looks nothing
>>> like current VMS internally and yet still manages to present a strongly
>>> compatible VMS environment to normal VMS application source code written
>>> in C or other higher level languages.
>>
>> If all you want is a C environment, you already have it, leave VMS alone.
>>
>
> What part of "other higher level languages" did you not see in the last
> part of the above ?
>
> Simon.
>


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David Froble                       Tel: 724-529-0450
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