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From: murphy@mips.com (Mike Murphy)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mips
Subject: Re: MIPS code generator
Message-ID: <4460@spim.mips.COM>
Date: 7 Jun 91 22:33:29 GMT
References: <33839@shamash.cdc.com> <12503@scolex.sco.COM>
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>In article <33839@shamash.cdc.com> peters@dsr.cpg.cdc.com (Rob Peters) writes:
>I have a company that wishes to convert their compiler to MIPs hardware.  
>The product is mostly coded in C, except for the Code Generator which is
>in assembly code (they do native implementations).  They are now converting
>80386 assembly routines to 4000 assembly code.  I suggested that maybe they 
>could use the MIPs Code Generator, assuming that it is modular and is
>accessible by a third-party compiler writer.
>
>I have been trying to get documentation regarding this MIPs Code Generator,
>but have had little luck.  Can anyone help me get information on this 
>product or tool?  Is there such a thing at all?  Would it help in the above
>situation or am I out in left field?  

Since no one else has spoken up, I'll throw in my two cents:
This is possible, and in fact has been done by other companies; 
however, it may not be particularly easy, depending on how the
other compiler is structured.  Our code generator takes ucode as its 
input, so the main work is in writing a translation phase that converts 
whatever old intermediate language they were using into ucode.
One of the main advantages of doing this is that you will get to 
take advantage of our global optimizer, which also operates on ucode.
To do all of this they would need to get a source license to our compiler,
and they would only be allowed to use this for MIPS-based targets.
--mike