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From: rogerk@mips.COM (Roger B.A. Klorese)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Integer Multiply/Divide on Sparc
Message-ID: <34428@mips.mips.COM>
Date: 12 Jan 90 19:18:11 GMT
References: <8840005@hpfcso.HP.COM> <1249@otc.otca.oz> <18132@umn-cs.CS.UMN.EDU>
Sender: news@mips.COM
Reply-To: rogerk@mips.COM (Roger B.A. Klorese)
Organization: MIPS Computer Systems, Sunnyvale, CA
Lines: 18

In article <18132@umn-cs.CS.UMN.EDU> mike@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu (Mike Haertel) writes:
>Source level compatibility ought to be enough for anyone.  With the
>emergence of, e.g., ANSI C, POSIX.1, and (less desirably) the
>X window system, it will be substantially easier to write portable
>programs, and these standards are likely to have a far longer viable
>life than any ABI.

At least 90% of computer users do not have the source of the applications
they use.  And most software houses will not recompile their products for
an arbitrarily large number of platforms, because each compilation also
requires a (long, one hopes) test cycle.  API's are useful, but ABI's are
most important to open systems.

-- 
ROGER B.A. KLORESE      MIPS Computer Systems, Inc.      phone: +1 408 720-2939
928 E. Arques Ave.  Sunnyvale, CA  94086                        rogerk@mips.COM
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