Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!snorkelwacker!mintaka!oliveb!amdahl!key!sjc
From: sjc@key.COM (Steve Correll)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Future of binary compatibility for unix?
Message-ID: <1618@key.COM>
Date: 14 Apr 90 02:41:22 GMT
References: <140@dynasys.UUCP>
Organization: Key Computer Labs, Fremont, CA
Lines: 21

In article <140@dynasys.UUCP>, jessea@dynasys.UUCP (Jesse W. Asher) writes:
> I have heard that version 4.0 of unix is supposed to
> be binary compatible within processor families...
> 1)  What kind of limitations do you run into within processor families?

For example, in the absence of standardization different implementations of C
on the same processor may disagree on whether "int" is 16 or 32 bits wide, or
on the method of passing arguments to a subroutine.

> 2)  I heard rumors that people were working on making unix completely
>     binary compatible between all platforms.  Is this true, and if so,
>     how is this possible?

One suggestion is to ship software in the form of a standard compiler
intermediate language, with an installation script that runs the back end of
the compiler to turn in into an executable object. One obstacle to this is the
lack of a generally accepted standard for a precisely defined compiler
intermediate language; the proliferation of dialects of Pcode and Ucode alone
suggests one shouldn't underestimate this obstacle.
-- 
...{sun,pyramid}!pacbell!key!sjc 				Steve Correll