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From: rentsch@unc.UUCP (Tim Rentsch)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.smalltalk
Subject: Re: BS on sun-3's, fix for multiplication primitive
Message-ID: <315@unc.unc.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 28-Nov-86 21:56:14 EST
Article-I.D.: unc.315
Posted: Fri Nov 28 21:56:14 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 29-Nov-86 07:49:34 EST
References: <255@unc.unc.UUCP> <699@randvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: rentsch@unc.UUCP (Tim Rentsch)
Distribution: net
Organization: CS Dept, U. of N. Carolina, Chapel Hill
Lines: 47

In article <699@randvax.UUCP> obrien@rand-unix.UUCP (Michael O'Brien) writes:
> 
> The multiplication fooble is news to me.  Thanks, Tim!  Didja ever get the
> process stuff in BS II to work?  I just love software archaeology!

No, I never did, though I did look at it for a while.  The problem
is, I can't figure out why it doesn't work!  I am a believer in the
"if you can't figure out the bug, rewrite the code from scratch"
school of thought, but this never got high enough on my priority
list to get rewritten.  So it goes.

If anyone else out there has gotten the process stuff working in BS,
I would vote for a posting.  (The Xerox interpreter we have has lots
of systems calls but no obvious way to run a unix program -- I
really miss 'unix it'.  On the other hand PS has sockets, we hope to
have 'rlogin' implemented soon, and as soon as we do I will give up on
sun windows.)

At the end of this message is the BS multiplication code diffs, for
those that want it.  

Next message:  a BS primitive for 'stat'ing files.

	cheers,   -txr

('diff newsource/SIPrims.c oldsource/SIPrims.c' generates:)
234,247c234,236
<     SmallIntegerRATest;
<     SmallIntegerRAConvert;
<     if(  reg1  ){			/* if self != 0 		  */
< 	int result = reg1 * reg2;	/*     compute answer  		  */
< 	if(  result / reg1 != reg2  ){	/*     if wrong answer 		  */
< 	    reg1 = 0x7fffffff;		/*         insure primitive fails */
< 	} else {			/*     else			  */
< 	    reg1 = result;		/*         yield right answer     */
< 	}				/*     fi			  */
<     }/****  0 * anything == 0  ****/  /* else (return self) fi	  */
<     SmallIntegerOperationFinish;	/*  (done January 21, 1986  -txr) */
< /**************************************************************************
<     The code that failed to work correctly:  (why?)
< 	reg1 *= reg2;			
---
> 	SmallIntegerRATest;
> 	SmallIntegerRAConvert;
> 	reg1 *= reg2;
249d237
< ***************************************************************************/