[Info-vax] VMS internals design, was: Re: BASIC and AST routines

[VAXman- at SendSpamHere.ORG]

In article <snrcd7$7td$5 at dont-email.me>, Simon Clubley <clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> writes:
>On 2021-11-25, VAXman-  @SendSpamHere.ORG <VAXman- at SendSpamHere.ORG> wrote:
>>
>> Trolling and changing the thread subject line does not excuse you from
>> answering the question I asked.  <crickets... in November nonetheless>
>>
>> Troll, troll troll, the troll is marching...
>>
>
>I already answered your question Brian as you would have seen if you
>had actually read my replies.
>
>It turns out that the reason those arguments are available to the called
>function is because VMS needs to preserve those registers across the AST
>call and some bright spark during the design of VMS thought it was
>acceptable to push those registers onto a user-visible call frame instead
>of storing them in a private area that the called AST function did not
>have access to.
>
>That's the kind of design decision that was so insane it should never
>have passed a design review but at least it appears to have been fixed
>in later architectures with a private storage area, just like it should
>have been on VAX.

If you really must know, read the "VAX/VMS I&DS at Chapter and Section 7.5
in the V5.2 edition.  Oh, I keep forgetting, you despise processor modes, 
so that'll just open up this up to more "wank, wank, wank VMS IS NOT UNIX"
hatred you spew.


>And the reason I thought it _must_ be Macro-32 related was because the
>real reason was so crazy it never even occurred to me. :-)

What? What? WHAT?  You mean it wasn't because there's something you could
do using C that one could not do with Macro-32?  Is that what your saying?
Were you aware that all that "elegant" Murray Hill hieroglyphics you're so 
fond of actually gets converted to machine code by these things they call
compilers?  On a VAX, that'd be VAX machine code whose assembly is called,
wait for it, Macro-32.  The AST mechanism was devised to allow "high level"
languages or C to be used for the AST routine, so why would Macro-32 be ANY
less capable?  I knew you couldn't answer this but boy you can sure exhale 
volumes of Ye Olde Hot Air.

-- 
VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker    VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)ORG

I speak to machines with the voice of humanity.