[Info-vax] CRTL and RMS vs SSIO

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 10/17/2021 6:36 PM, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
> On Monday, October 18, 2021 at 8:35:58 AM UTC+13, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> 
>> Fully compatible DCL with logicals and symbols.
> 
> The core of the VMS emulation, as far as user-mode code sees it,
> would be the compatibility library that the program links against --
> call this “libstarlet”. This would implement QIO, RMS and whatever
> else we want to salvage from the VMS API. As I mentioned, this would
> not be completely self-contained: where necessary, it would
> communicate with other service processes.
> 
> For example, we would need a program called “dcl”. This would not
> only be a DCL-compatible command shell, spawning user-mode code in a
> child process, it would also provide services to that child process
> for accessing DCL variables and process/job logical names. And PPFs.
> 
> I think terminal I/O would also need to be mediated by the dcl
> process. That way, it can implement correct behaviour for control
> characters, read-with-prompt, broadcasts etc.
> 
> As for group- and systemwide logical names, I think we would need a
> separate daemon for that, longer-lived than any dcl process. That
> would also manage common event flag clusters and mailboxes. We could
> give it a boring, obvious name like “vmssys”. Or we could go for
> something more deeply meaningful, like “s0” or even “80000168” ...
> 
>> Fully compatible RMS library.
> 
> I think this can be contained entirely within libstarlet.
> 
>> Fully compatible Basic implementation
>> 
>> Fully compatible Pascal implementation.
> 
> As mentioned, take the existing VMS-specific frontends and replace
> the backends with something from the GCC or LLVM projects.
> 
>> We can find tens of thousands of people that will: - claim that it
>> is easy - provide 10-20 lines of English description - etc.
> 
> Like I said, give more specifics, and I can answer them more
> specifically. You want to talk about async QIOs? Event flags? Global
> sections? DECnet? Just ask. This is a discussion forum, we are here
> to discuss!

You apparently missed the point.

Anybody can claim that they can do stuff like this in 10 months or
10 weeks or 10 days.

And they can discuss it from now to eternity on usenet.

But it means nothing.

If they actually implement a significant part, then it means something.

Arne