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From: rick@seismo.CSS.GOV (Rick Adams)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: SPARC
Message-ID: <44190@beno.seismo.CSS.GOV>
Date: Thu, 19-Nov-87 12:11:15 EST
Article-I.D.: beno.44190
Posted: Thu Nov 19 12:11:15 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 22-Nov-87 01:19:38 EST
References: <7456@alice.UUCP>
Organization: Center for Seismic Studies, Arlington, VA
Lines: 25
Summary: marketing nonsense

In article <7456@alice.UUCP>, tve@alice.UUCP writes:
> 4) There is no way the Fujitsu SPARC chip can emulate 68020 code
>    at 7MIPS (whatever that means). I think the confusion arises
>    from the "source code compatibility" between Sun-3 (68020) and
>    Sun-4 (SPARC) claimed by Sun. All that means, is that source code
>    used on Sun-3 can be compiled for Sun-4 "unaltered".

Of course Sun's claim about running Sun-3 code unaltered on a Sun 4
is utter fantasy. Many programs that run fine on a Sun 3 will
not run on a Sun-4 without major modifications. (And of course
many programs that run a Sun-3 will indeed run fine on a Sun -4. The
point is that they all won't.)

The exact claim is "Even though the Sun-4 family is based on a powerful
new architecture, Sun has maintained 100% source-code compatibility
with Sun-2 and Sun-3 product families"

Sun's response to that is that the programs are not portable if they
won't run on a Sun 4. However, thats not the issue. Marketing claims
that any program that runs on a sun3 need only be recompiled to
run on a Sun-4 it doesn't say anything about passing lint with
NO ERRORS (I have never seen a real program that didn't get some
sort of lint error).

---rick