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From: pf@artcom0.north.de (Peter Funk)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.modula2
Subject: Re: Is it a fact that there is no Modula2 for UNIX on 386 machines?
Keywords: modula2,unix
Message-ID: <3036@artcom0.north.de>
Date: 1 Nov 90 23:09:53 GMT
References: <1515@ariadne.csi.forth.GR>
Distribution: comp
Organization: ArtCom GmbH, Atelier f. Computergrafik, Bremen(FRG)
Lines: 61

In <1515@ariadne.csi.forth.GR> nicolas@csi.forth.gr (Nicolas Chrissakis) writes:

mc> Hello Modula2 people,

mc> I have a program that runs under DOS JPI compiler and I will like to
mc> port it under Unix on a 386 PC machine. Is it a fact that there is
mc> no Modula2 compiler for 386 PC under any Unix? :-(

mc> I realy do not want to code in C.
Agreed.

I know at least two products :

1. The well known Logitech Compiler has been ported to Xenix in its
   Version 2.0 of 1987.  We buyed a preliminary Version called 
   Modula-2/X 0.5 from Logitech in early 1988 and haved used it very
   heavily since then in everay day work on a SCO Xenix 386
   and have discovered only very few bugs. 
     But as far as I know Logitech has thrown Support of Xenix in
   favour of OS/2 :-(.  We were not able to get any support or an update
   from them.  The generated code is relatively slow : 8086-Code with 
   the awful 64kB-limitation on data segments is your only choice.
   Nevertheless the code seems to be correct (A Statement, which does
   not apply to the Microsoft-C-Compiler on Xenix :-(). 
     I had a hard time to get the wonderful Logitech-PMD running
   with 80386-core images:  I wrote a small utility program, which converts
   the core-Header containing the local descriptor table into the 
   format of a 80286 kernel-user structure in order to get the
   PMD running with it.
       Excuse: I've n't the address handy at the moment.

2. Oregon Software sells also a Modula-2 Compiler for Xenix 386,
   which is able to generate real 80386-code.  We buyed this compiler
   a while ago but have not used in production here.  Someone here
   has tried to install it a few months ago.  But he ran into the
   problem, that the compiler reports 'version conflicts' between
   modules where there is no real version conflict. (Since we use
   an automatic Makefile-generator an error in compilation sequence
   was unlikely).  I don't know, whether this is a serious 
   problem of this compiler, since we had no time yet to track the
   problem down into bug-reportable-form.  
     There is no PMD, also Oregon offers a run time debugger called 
   'odb' coming with the compiler.  Since we absolutely need a way
   to analyse 'core'-dumps of programs crashed at one of our 
   customers sites, this is one of the reasons not to convert from
   Logitech to Oregon at the Moment.
     I don't know whether our version 1.0C is the latest
   version of this compiler.  You may want to contact them :
       Oregon Software, Inc.
       6915 S.W. Macadam Avenue, Suite 200
       Portland, Oregon 97219
       Phone: 001-503-245-2202 Fax: 001-503-245-8449

If there are other people out there using Modula-2 on 386 unices,
I would like to here about your experiences.
-- 
Peter Funk \\ ArtCom GmbH, Schwachhauser Heerstr. 78, D-2800 Bremen 1
Work at home: Oldenburger Str.86, D-2875 Ganderkesee 1 /+49 4222 6018 (8am-6pm)
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