[Info-vax] Rdb/x86

[Craig A. Berry]

On 11/13/20 12:28 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 11/13/2020 11:00 AM, Phillip Helbig (undress to reply) wrote:
>> In article <rom141$v4h$1 at dont-email.me>, Simon Clubley
>> <clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> writes:
>>> This would send a major signal because VSI have managed to get _Oracle_
>>> to commit to Rdb on x86-64 and it would be a major confidence boost that
>>> x86-64 VMS is less likely to suddenly fail at the last moment.
>>
>> Rdb was ported before.  Maybe they did it right.  Maybe it was more or
>> less compile and go, hence not a big commitment.  Not to take away from
>> Rdb engineering, but trying to spin this as some huge commitment on the
>> part of Oracle would probably be stretching it.  Has Larry heard of Rdb?
>> Very probably.  VSI?  Probably.  The port?  Maybe a word or two.  I'm
>> sure that he is more committed to his yachts than to VMS.
> 
> The word is that Rdb is very much Bliss.
> 
> A port to a different ISA with same OS, same compiler, same
> bitness, same endianess and a simpler memory model should
> not be too bad.

They generate some query-specific code at run-time and use GEM for the
precompilers, so it's likely a bit more than compile-and-go. But yes,
they have done this before, and appear to have learned a few things and
improved portability in the VAX-to-Alpha and Alpha-to-Itanium ports as
well as in the abortive ports to Windows NT and Tru64:


<https://download.oracle.com/otndocs/products/rdb/pdf/tech_archive/port_rdb_to_itanium.pdf>

By the way, notice the statement of commitment from an Oracle VP on
slide #2 before VMS had even booted on Itanium.