[Info-vax] BASIC and AST routines

[Simon Clubley]

On 2021-11-22, VAXman-  @SendSpamHere.ORG <VAXman- at SendSpamHere.ORG> wrote:
> In article <sngp1p$aud$2 at dont-email.me>, Simon Clubley <clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> writes:
>>On 2021-11-19, Dave Froble <davef at tsoft-inc.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> I'm going to confess to curiosity.  Why are R0, R1, SP, and PC passed to an AST 
>>> routine?
>>>
>>
>>Because it's another example of VMS functionality being implemented
>>at way too low an abstraction level because of the need to support
>>Macro-32 as an application programming language.
>
> BULLSHIT!  If you believe that's true, please provide an illustrating example.
> I'll be waiting...
>

That VMS API passes in a stack pointer, a PC and what were originally
two architecture-specific registers.

That kind of information simply would not be exposed at application
code level in a modern version of that API as it would (rightly) be
treated as an implementation specific detail that would be handled
by the compiler.

That information is only needed because the lowest supported application
language on VMS is Macro-32 and not C (or another comparable low-level
language).

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.