Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!husc6!encore!soper
From: soper@encore.UUCP (Pete Soper)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.modula2
Subject: Re: Modula2 on Encore (questions)
Summary: What standard?
Message-ID: <2562@encore.UUCP>
Date: 25 Jan 88 20:12:56 GMT
References: <8026@sunybcs.UUCP>
Sender: news@husc6.harvard.edu
Reply-To: soper@encore.UUCP (Pete Soper)
Organization: Encore Computer Corp, Marlboro, MA
Lines: 40

In article <8026@sunybcs.UUCP> kumard@sunybcs.UUCP (Deepak Kumar) writes:
>	We just got an installation of the Modula2 compiler for
>	the Encore. I think it is a port of the ETH compiler. But

This compiler is called "ETH/IIT Modula-2". It is a third party package
based on a heavily modified version of the ETH single pass compiler, and a
port of the OSSI runtime libraries. This is distributed with full source code
by Illinois Institute of Technology. Licenses from Modula Corp (for the
compiler) and the OSSI authors must be executed. Both the ETH compiler and
OSSI libraries were used because they were available and could be distributed
with source code for next to nothing. The compiler produces horrible native code
in no time flat. For example, the compiler recompiles itself on a Multimax 120
(the slowest Multimax model) in 45 seconds. Runtime performance is about 1/4 as
good as that of equivalent C programs compiled with Encore C, based on the
Hennessey/Nye benchmarks. There was a plan to have proper user documentation
but so far this hasn't worked out and documentation consists of two man pages
and the source code. A source level debugger is also hoped for, but this
hasn't happened yet either.

>	it does not have the standard set of library modules, instead
>	we have the OSSI library with names begining with SIBlah.def
>	etc. Does anybody have the standard interface? One can

What standard set of library modules? There are many, many different sets of
runtimes for M2 systems. The thing to notice is that OSSI includes routines
to do all the usual things you are likely to want to do and most of the ROUTINE
names discussed in the Wirth book are present. The module names are as they
came from the OSSI authors and cannot be changed (e.g. from SITerminal to
Terminal) without violating their license.

>	Also, it has an older version of the parralel programming
>	interface 'libu'. Does anybody know if the newer version
>	'libpp' has been ported?

A libpp interface has not been made, as far as I know. All of the source
code for the libu module is provided, however, and it is absolutely trivial.
An interface to libpp made out of the libu module would be just as trivial.

Sorry to be long winded about this, but it's not like we have to wade through
a lot of traffic in this news group.