Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!pasteur!ames!sun-barr!texsun!texbell!killer!usl!usl-pc!jpdres10 From: jpdres10@usl-pc.usl.edu (Green Eric Lee) Newsgroups: comp.sys.pyramid Subject: Re: gcc for Pyramid Message-ID: <278@usl-pc.usl.edu> Date: 20 Apr 89 16:52:08 GMT References: <1032@nixctc.DE> <1033@nixctc.DE> Reply-To: jpdres10@usl-pc.UUCP (Green Eric Lee) Organization: Univ. of Southwestern La., Lafayette Lines: 33 In article bob@allosaur.cis.ohio-state.edu (Bob Sutterfield) writes: >I understand that it was done inside Pyramid, mostly as an exercise in >curiosity, and it worked fine. Last I heard, Pyramid was uninterested >in releasing it because it would reveal too much proprietary >information about their system. This "proprietary information" argument puzzles me. Anybody can look at the assembly-language output of "cc" on a Pyramid and figure out exactly how their "proprietary" assembly language works. I did it all the time when learning "C", to make sure that what I thought I was doing was what "cc" thought I was doing. I suspect what they're more interested in is preventing the making of Pyramid-clones (as if anybody would want to!). The main thing needed to port Unix to a new computer is a "C" compiler... having a Pyramid-compatible "C" compiler would thus make it that much easier. Still, any decent compiler expert could re-target gcc to the Pyramid in maybe a month or so of full-time work... so I'm still puzzled. >Sounds like someone else outside Pyramid will have to go ahead and do >the work again. Yep. A pain. Reminds me of what someone once said about the Middle Ages: "Digitalis was invented at least four times that I know of. Each time, the secret died with its maker. That's the way things happened back then, you didn't share information." Are we headed towards a new Dark Ages? Well, if you measure that possibility by how many times we have to re-invent the wheel.... -- | // Eric Lee Green P.O. Box 92191, Lafayette, LA 70509 | | // {uunet!dalsqnt,killer}!usl!elg (318)989-9849 | | \X/ >> In Hell you need 4Mb to Multitask << |